CRITICAL REFLECTION ON THE MACARTHUR FOUNDATION’S
FELLOWSHIP FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
General Questionnaire for all MacArthur Fellows
This questionnaire has been designed to minimize the time you spend on it (it shouldn’t take more than half an hour to complete) while giving us the most pertinent information for a critical reflection on the FLD programme. Please be honest, frank and self-critical in your responses. We hope eventually to share the insights from this exercise with other agencies and institutions launching or running similar programmes, so try to provide answers that would be helpful to others. Thank you for your time, patience and commitment to making this a true learning process.
PART (I)
PERSONAL DATA
Name
Dr. E. Mohamed Rafique
Organization (If applicable) UNAIDS
Designation(If applicable) Moderator and Resource Person - AIDS Community in India
Address & Contact Nos.
UNAIDS India Office,
A2/35 Safdarjung Enclave
New Delhi – 110 029.
INDIA.
emohamed.rafique@undp.org
tel: +91 11 41354545 Extn 317
fax: +91 11 41354534
mobile: +91 9312727021
Brief Description Of Your Present Work
(Upto 5 Lines Only Please)
Facilitate e-discussion on queries raised by community’s members; synthesize summaries and consolidated replies and follows up on community’s action groups to intensify involvement of the community around specific issues requiring interventions and expert guidance. Also, ensure Civil society participation in policy formulation as in National AIDS Control Policy – Phase III (NACP III).
E-mail 1 emohamed.rafique@undp.org
E-mail 2
emsify@hotmail.com
PART II: REFLECTIONS ON THE FELLOWSHIP
Instructions: In many instances, we have provided space for up to three responses, but feel free to provide one or two responses if they convey your key points adequately. Please don’t use the “don’t know/can’t say” response unless you genuinely feel your response cannot fit into any of the other categories provided. Please be brief but clear, and give an example whenever it is useful to illustrate your answer.
1. Looking back, were you able to achieve the objectives of the project for which you received the MacArthur Fellowship? (Tick one or place an ‘X’ in the box)
Fully Mostly Partly Poorly Don’t know/can’t say
2. What were the best features of the selection process from your point of view?
a) The best feature about the selection team was the openness and faith they showed in communicating and awareness building through interactive web pages.
b) For the second year, the encouragement given by Poonam and Dipa to “think big” made me to embark on setting up the Indian Business Coalition on AIDS
3. What inputs did you receive from the MacArthur Foundation during the course of your Fellowship that were useful to you or your work?
a) Inputs from the MacArthur Foundation was responsible for me to conduct a Skill Building Workshop for Web Designers on Interactive Web Pages
b) The very process of writing MacArthur’s proposals and reports have helped my language, research, analytical and synthesis skills, which is so relevant in editing job that I do today.
c) The sabbatical and fellowship that I had due to MacArthur Foundation helped me to develop myself into a technical professional on HIV and AIDS thanks to the International experiences and contacts that it provided.
4. What other inputs would have been useful or valuable?
a) The present scope itself is so flexible and open that one cannot ask for more.
b) It does so much help and good to one’s career that it would be a shame if it is stopped
c) ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5. Describe up to three important ways in which the Fellowship helped you grow or develop professionally
a) Observing experts, guides, directors, consultants, film makers, TV journalists, and a variety of other professionals with whom I worked closely during my MacArthur Foundation fellowship helped me to rediscover that integrity was the bottom line.
b) Technically because of the Fellowship I was made the Resource Person on HIV and AIDS for the whole Tata Group of Companies in India.
c) Because of the support to the Interactive Web pages of the Interventions for Sexual Health of the Indian Medical Association, I became known to over eight thousand of its members, so much so that for every interview that I went my reputation had already preceded me!
6. Describe up to three important ways in which the Fellowship helped you grow or develop personally
a) Personally it helped me to change my career that way I had envisioned in the first MacArthur Foundation Proposal.
b) From a local CBO of Tata Tea employees, to my present position in UNAIDS I have taken two steps. At each of these my employers had been convinced by the good feedback and references they had got from the Foundation.
c) It helped me break from once-a-doc syndrome, with an entry into development sector where the chances for growth is much better.
7. Did any important opportunities come your way thanks to the Fellowship? In other words, did any doors get opened because you were a MacArthur Fellow?
a) I still have a letter of Appointment from the Global Director of the Catholic Medical Mission Board as their Program Manager in US. I could not make it because of post 9/11 restrictions.
b) Became National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) Consultant to review their targeted Interventions in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab during the MacArthur Foundation fellowship
c) Became Consultant to Academy for Educational Development, Washington during the MacArthur Foundation fellowship
8. Name up to five important outputs (publications, training modules, films, etc.) that came out of your fellowship work:
a) HIV and AIDS Needs Assessment Report of the Tea Plantations in North Bengal and Evaluation Reports of NACO Targeted Interventions of Delhi Harayana and Punjab
b) TV shows in NUM and RAJ TV
c) Syndromic Management Training Module for Medical Officers
d) Interactive Web page Skill Building Module for Web Designers.
e) HIV and AIDS Workplace Interventions Capacity Building –various Materials and a Module
9. Name any awards, prizes, citations, or other forms of public recognition that you have received as a result of your Fellowship work (include here any that may have been awarded much after your fellowship ended, but were clearly in recognition of the work that was launched or initiated through the fellowship)
a) Was made the Resource Person for HIV and AIDS for the Tata Group of Companies in India (There are eighty Companies in this group)
b) Was given the young Scientist Award by RAJ TV just on the eve of completion of fellowship
c) Letter of appreciation from the CEO of Tata Tea specifically mentioning the work under MacArthur Fellowship
10. Did your fellowship work or its outputs have any impact on policy during or after the fellowship period?
High impact Moderate impact Slight impact No impact
Don’t know can’t say
If so, at what level: International National State Local
Please give an example or brief description of such a policy impact:
Was instrumental in drafting the HIV and AIDS Workplace Policy for Tata Tea which was the first of its kind in the country, so went on to draft the same policy for the Tata Group of Companies and later benchmark the first four of these Companies.
11. Did your fellowship work or its outputs have any impact on the strategies of other actors in the same field?
High impact Moderate impact Slight impact No impact
Don’t know / can’t say
If so, on whose strategies?
International agencies Government NGOs Researchers Others
Please give an example or brief description of such a strategic impact:
1. The Royal Tropical Institute and the Academy of Educational Development are the International agencies that have used our Workplace Policy as models on their web sites.
2. The Asian and Indian Business Coalition on AIDS (IBCA) has helped NACO draft legislation on minimum Workplace Interventions for Indian Companies.
3. Workshops for NGOs conducted by members of IBCA has helped them develop proposals for Workplace Interventions
4. Companies outside the Tata Group like Reliance, Modi and Bajaj have used the models and Modi, which developed Modi Care Foundation on our model, is today way ahead of Tatas in Workplace Intervention.
12. Did your fellowship work or its outputs have any impact on the state of knowledge (quantitative or qualitative information, new theories or concepts), in any field?
High impact Moderate impact Slight impact No impact
Don’t know / can’t say
Please give an example or brief description of such knowledge impact:
The Knowledge Behaviour Attitude and Practice studies showed that more than 50% of employees were accessing medical care outside Company’s schemes of free medical aid. This knowledge was used to design Workplace Intervention and Treatment Programs.
13. Has any new organization, centre, department, cell, or programme emerged out of your fellowship work (that did not exist before, and that can be directly attributed to it) such as an NGO, service provider, academic department, etc.?
Yes No
If yes, please provide the name and location of the new entity:
Name: Indian Business Coalition on AIDS & Interventions for Sexual Health of Indian Medical Association
Location:New Delhi & www.ishima.info
14. In retrospect, what were the greatest strengths of the MacArthur Fellowship programme in your view ?
a) Its work with Gender – Women’s empowerment
b) Developing new skills that enable new career options
c) Facilitating professional and personal growth
