After 18 months of volunteer work with Pesinet, Lucie joined the team full-time in May 2011. She is now actively involved in the development of Pesinet.

• Lucie, can you tell us about your background? What did you do before joining Pesinet?

I spent my last months as an ESSEC student doing an internship in South East Asia; then I joined Indicta, a French consulting firm. In parallel, I started to get interested in social entrepreneurship. I heard about Pesinet through my cousin who is one of the 3 co-founders of Pesinet, and I decided to get involved. It was a good time for me, and a good time for Pesinet which needed motivated people to help Anne (CEO and co-founder of Pesinet) expand the NGO. For 18 months, I dedicated part of my spare time for Pesinet, before joining on a full-time basis.

• What were your first tasks ?

I started off with Pesinet’s participation in the Convergences 2015 forum in Paris. For the next 3 months, I contributed to the strategic thinking on Pesinet’s economic model, I took charge of relationships with our financial partners, I created a « corporate » brochure for Pesinet and I followed up on technological developments for our health application. Then I prepared my trip to Mali.

• You spent 3 months with the field teams in Bamako…

Yes, it was essential that I spend some time in Mali in order to acquaint myself with the field, to understand the local health context in greater depth, and to meet the local teams. I arrived just when we were preparing the launch of Pesinet on 2 new sites, so it was a great time to be there!

• What did you work on in Bamako?

My main mission was to lead the marketing studies for our “premium offer” project. This is one of the possibilities that we are considering to strengthen our economic model: developing a premium health service that would be more expensive but also more comprehensive than our current health service and would target families that have the desire and the financial means to spend more on their children’s health. On that service, we would make a margin that would improve the global self-financing rate and sustain the service dedicated to lower-income families.

I organized a first series of focus groups that enabled to gauge the interest of families for a premium offer and to identify the elements not included in our current service that would have high added value for families. Based on the results, we built an offer that we are currently testing through a second series of focus groups.

• What are your impressions of the field? Is it very different from what you imagined from France?

I was astonished to see how much activities have developed and improved since my first field visit in February 2010.

We now have strong and motivated teams, and well-structured processes that enable sound running of operations. Things are done well, and in a lively atmosphere! Incidentally, this is something that clearly emerged during the focus groups: subscribing families are very pleased with the Pesinet service, in particular with the work of our agents – their professionalism, their involvement, their joviality.

Moreover, we strengthened our relationships with the local health authorities. Pesinet is now acknowledged as an important actor in the field of community healthcare; and regularly invited to contribute to strategic workshops on these topics.

I am thrilled by those three months in Mali! It was a very enriching experience. I got to develop strong relationships with my colleagues, which will enable me to be fully part of the team, even from France.

• You are just back from Mali. Will you continue to work for Pesinet from Paris?

Yes, there is also a lot to do from Paris to support the development of the NGO and its activities. 2012 promises to be as busy as 2011. On the menu : development and launch of a pregnancy-care service ; investigation of partnership possibilities with mutual insurance structures and microfinance institutions, and preliminary feasibility studies for a pilot site in rural zone. All these projects will give me plenty of opportunities for future field missions in Mali!

Cheick Mohamed PANO joined Pesinet on January 1st to fill the role of supervisor. We asked him about his background, his plans for the program and his first impressions.

• · Cheick, can you tell us about your background before coming to Pesinet?

After one year of studying legal science at the university, I entered the National Training Institute for Social Workers (l’Institut national de formation des travailleurs sociaux, INFTS). I enjoyed these studies very much and immediately I felt that I had found my way. The internships that I had throughout my schooling made it possible for me to discover different organisations in the social and sanitary sectors, notably the health centres and the organisations in charge of child welfare and their reinsertion into society.

I gained my first work experience in the NGO Save the Children from 2005 to 2006. I was the supervisor of the Zinc programme. Zinc is a micronutrient given to children from 0 to 5 years of age suffering from diarrhoea. My sector was the Bougouni District and my job consisted in supporting the community representatives in their communication efforts to change people’s behaviour, raising awareness about family planning and setting up initiatives for preventing malaria, acute respiratory infections, diarrhoea and other illness that threaten children’s survival.

From 2006 to 2008, I was social assistant at the Douentza house of corrections. Working in the prison environment deeply affected me. I was particularly drawn to the issue of imprisoned children. I participated in establishing an agreement framework with the Douentza health centre for addressing health problems.

After that, I worked in Social Services in Ansongo, a district in the Gao region, and was responsible for mutual health insurance plans. My mission consisted in supporting and advising women involved in the management committee of the mutual system. I also trained them on how to run meetings and manage the health insurance plan.

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

In 2009, I enrolled at the University of Languages, Humanities, Arts and Human Sciences where I did a training programmein Education Science. I looked for employment opportunities everyday and I discovered Pesinet through the ANPE (National Employment Agency) website. I consulted Pesinet’s website and I felt that it fit with what I was looking for. I liked the mutual health insurance aspect and the innovative use of Information and Communication Technologies. This is something that can be very effective in a country like Mali. The agents visit the families and the information appears on the doctor’s computer. It is very innovative.

• Can you give us your impression since arriving at Pesinet?

I appreciate the seriousness with which things are organised as well as the training opportunities I had in accounting and management. I am discovering a new work culture as a social worker in an entrepreneurial project.

The managing teams, in particular Pauline Dupont, the international volunteer who trained me, have high expectations, which is very good for me because I must make a habit of checking what I do, and reflect on my actions. I also really like the fact that I have a great deal of autonomy regarding the strategies we take as an organisation and that I can make decisions. I present my recommendations to the management and we discuss the feasibility of these strategies.

• What are your plans for Pesinet?

My plans for Pesinet: involve the communities and parents of the children in the project in a truly participative way. One of the first meetings took place on Saturday, February 5. It was mainly for the fathers of the children enrolled in the programme. I wanted to show them why Pesinet is important for their children and involve them in monitoring the collection of subscription fees. One of the things that I have noticed is that the parents of the children enrolled are not used to paying on time. My idea was to set up a 3-person commission comprised of community leaders whose children are enrolled in the project to help raise awareness, collect fees and manage potential conflicts.

I’m also thinking about another complementary strategy: through the weighing agents, identify mothers who are willing to organise talk sessions at their homes over a cup of tea in a friendly atmosphere to share information and ideas about the project.

Cheick Mohamed PANO, Program Supervisor

Cheick Mohamed PANO is the program supervisor in the district of Bamako Coura and Bamako Coura Bolibana. His role is to monitor and coordinate activities, to manage human resources and finances. In particular, he is responsible for the collection of subscibers’ fees. He also manages the marketing plan for the service and is the interface with local operating partners.

Before joining Pesinet’s team, Cheick Mohamed gain professional experience in various organisations dedicated to social work and healthcare. He worked for a year with  an international NGO (Save the children) on an nutrition program and was responsible for building capacity among members of a mutual insurance system in Mali.

A social worker, Cheick Mohamed PANO has a special interest in issues related to children and youth. He is engaged in the thrid-sector as the Secretary of a non-profit student association dedicated to communication for development. He is currently managing a team of 5 weighing agents.

Fatoumata Doumbia, Adjaratou Fané, Nana Camara, Sira Doumbia, Assetou Niambelé

Weighing agents are responsible for recruiting new subscribers, carrying out the weekly health check-up of children enrolled in the program, collecting health data in the mobile phone, alerting children when the doctor has detected a potential health risk, and collecting subscription fees. They also educate families on prevention practices when visiting them and inform them of existing medical follow-up and prevention services. They have a key role in the service as the interface between the families and the doctor and as agents of change in the community.

Pesinet is their first salaried job but all of them have either had training as auxiliary nurses or gained experience in healthcare as volunteers in community healthcare centers.

Dr. Hamadoun Cisse, General Practitioner

Hamadoun Cissé is one of the doctor of our partnering healthcare center.

He is a general practioner with a special interest in nutrition issues and children diseases. He is responsible for detecting potential illnesses among Pesinet subscrbers remotely by checking data on Pesinet web interface, examing children at the healthcare center and prescribing medication.

He is also involved in the continuous health training of the agents’ team.