A new member to strengthen Pesinet’s team in Bamako

Anne-Laure ROBINE just arrived in Mali for a six-month mission on the ground. We asked her to tell us more about her previous path, her motivations and the tasks she’d like to complete while in Bamako.

Anne-Laure, can you tell us more about you and your path before joining Pesinet?

I am a student at ESSEC, with a major in “social entrepreneurship”. During my studies, I worked during two years part-time at EDF Group in the Marketing Department, especially on the development of sales tools for mainly two types of customers: local authorities and social landlords.After this contract and to complete my degree, I wanted to be “in the field” and to work on a project that I felt deeply about.

Did you already know about Pesinet or did you apply by chance?

Of course I knew about Pesinet: everyone knows about this venture at ESSEC since Anne, Pesinet’s Managing Director, led the project to the finals of the Global Social Venture Competition in 2009, a contest organized by the University of Berkeley in partnership with ESSEC. At that time, I was a judge for the competition and I really got interested in this social venture. So when I knew Pesinet was recruiting an intern, I took my chance.

Can you explain why you got so interested in Pesinet?

I’ll give three reasons:

Firstly, Pesinet is a project that is exactly aligned with my vision of social entrepreneurship: namely, a project that is very focused, that is well defined and in which responses are designed following a clear need identification. It is a project that aims at the emergence of a viable structure, sustainable, efficient, helpful and responsible.

Secondly, it is a project in development, which is very motivating, even if it is a lot of work ! The program has to be consolidated, there are still many things to implement.

Thirdly, Pesinet’s actions are very meaningful to me because there are root in human and social concerns of course. I am also interested in the alliance of technology and proximity in this project…. When this is often contradictory.

Exactly what will be your main tasks be during this internship?

I have two tasks to fulfill: the first one is to assist the team in Bamako in the daily management of the program to be even more effective. The other one is to participate in the evaluation of the service, in connection with Marie-Pierre Gagnon, a Canadian researcher specializing in the evaluation of e-health projects that will carry out an independent evaluation of the program next fall.

Last question: how is it in Bamako? What are your first impressions?

I arrived one week ago. My colleagues greeted me warmly, and I began to experiment the program first-hand: the weighing of children by the local staff, medical examination, management of all children enrolled and the activities by the coordinator … it is exciting to see how Pesinet works in practice everyday.

What I am particularly struck by is the real integration of Pesinet within the health center’s activites. This is not an “adds-on” service, but really a program that supports the structure already in place. Doctors, pharmacists, administrative staff have an important role to play in the functioning of the service. All those stakeholders have to be taken into account when designing and implementing the program. This means a lot of work but also  a lot of fun!

I promise, in 6 months, I’ll tell you all this in Bambara (local language, ndlr.)…