I love my job!!!!

Let me share with you one of the highlights of my job - the World Bank grant project.
We have a great contact person in the Paris office of the World Bank and he gave me the tip to apply for their Development Marketplace Program with the AIESEC global HIV/AIDS Learning Network.
After some preparation about the different country level initiatives I realized that almost all countries are using the same framework in the their HIV/AIDS initiatives: the Ask Program (Answers, Solutions and Knowledge around HIV/AIDS issues) which was originally designed for African countries with the methodology of peer education and even if some of the non-African countries have other brand names for their projects, basically they do the same: peer education for poor young people, one of the most vulnerable groups of the society.

So, I decided to design the project according to the description of the Ask program and to collect the measurables from different countries accordingly. I also wanted to involve the Growth Network Boards so that they help me communicate with the countries and they get the expertise on grant applications.
Besides that I still had to call up almost all the countries because they still needed some clarifications that only I could provide and the deadline was quite tight for e-mail conversations.
So, I ended up speaking with 17 countries over the course of 2 weeks: Cameroon, Costa Rica (Central America South), Mainland of China, Colombia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, Uganda, US, Venezuela.

It’s been amazing! And all of them got completely excited! And after clarifying the goals of the projects and the information I needed from them for submitting the grant, almost all of them replied to me within 1 to 2 days. What a speed, what a speed!
And after the compilation of the deliverables we’ve realized that the global AIESEC network is planning to realize over 200 exchanges, around 400 learning events, and almost 50.000 young people will be reached by the project over the course of one year.
And I’ve even received feedback from our contact person from the World Bank and he said the application was brilliant and that we had a huge potential to win the grant award – 200.000 Euros for a period of two years!!!!
And do you know what is the best thing in connection with this grant? The fact that I could personally contact all the HIV/AIDS responsibles in the abovementioned countries and we‘ve built personal connections which is a key to the success of our global HIV/AIDS Learning Network that I am managing this year.
Besides that I love the World Bank and I seriously consider working for them from next year on, after my AIESEC career ends.

Life is simply beautiful!