My Internship With The Maternal and Child Health Coalition

I have spent many semesters with the MCHC, but this has only been my second semester as an intern in the Reproductive Health and Reproductive Rights Internship Program. Over the summer, I focused on creating my own project to look at how the MCHC could better serve the LGBTQ community in New Orleans. I wrapped up that project in August, so my supervisor asked me what I wanted to do for the fall. I decided I wanted to take this time to learn more about the behind-the-scenes work at the MCHC before choosing another research project. After looking at what the MCHC needed, I chose to help with sifting through membership information and making a new membership form to get more updated information.

When I first got the information from previous membership questionnaires, I was a bit overwhelmed. There were over a hundred responses, and many of the questions had broad answers that made organizing these entries by field of reproductive health difficult. Although challenging, sorting through the different individuals and organizations in these forms helped me better understand the work of organizations within the coalition. Now, when someone asks me what the coalition does, I can tell them about different projects happening across our organizations in the fields of maternal and child health. This struggle with the data made me realize just how much we needed a new, more concise form to track our current members and the work they do. I crafted new questions that will hopefully guide our members to give clearer answers, which will help us find ways to better support these organizations in the future.

I want to thank Newcomb Institute and the MCHC for giving me this opportunity to learn more about the complexities of reproductive health and justice and the work that goes on behind the scenes in these organizations. I am excited to continue this internship in the spring.