This is a guest post by Lydia Bennett-Li, who graduated from Sussex this summer and was a participant in the research for my book. In this post, Lydia reflects how her year-long placement at an Indian research organization has shaped her post-university journey and better understanding of the challenges of international development research. Thank you Lydia!
My journey as a student of International Development (ID), as I am sure every ID student would agree, was and continues to be a voyage through uncharted waters.
I decided to apply to ID fairly last minute. Like many prospective students I have met over the years being a Global Studies Ambassador, I was drawn to study ID as a result of reading, watching and learning about issues in the developing world. I must admit, I was naive in this sense. My understanding of ID at the time was limited to rather stark issues, such as education, hunger and inequality. It was only after commencing the course and learning from experts in the field, that I truly began to understand the complexities and contradictions of the developing world. While learning in this way opened my mind and broadened my understanding of ID, it also led me to become increasingly confused as to what I should do with myself post-university.
I knew by the middle of my second year, that I no longer wanted to work for a charity, or as an academic, or as an ID practitioner. I decided to take a year out and work for a mental health research organisation in Goa, India. I worked within a large substance-use disorder project, that was designing a mobile-based intervention for hazardous drinking among Goan youth. During my time in this project I learnt an incredible amount. From core research skills, to project-based management, I was able to gain some genuine, practical skills that I knew would put me in good stead for a career in ID research. However, I just did not enjoy working in research. I loved my team, and I loved that our work was aiming to have a positive impact on youth in the area, but I struggled to enjoy the bureaucracy that came with the project. I was shocked at just how important the funders of the project were in the decision-making processes, and was unsettled by just how much finance seemed to impact our work, sometimes with considerable ethical implications. I decided to do some research into the finance side of research projects, and other charity-based programs, and came across the huge world of audit.
Learning about how charities, corporations and other organisations are obliged to report on their finances, and in some cases their social activity appealed to me hugely, and I spent a considerable amount of time trying to understand just how it all worked. I learnt about financial reporting, fraud, social audits, ISO standards and more. Over time developed a keen interest in pursuing a career within which I could create positive change both globally and locally, through ensuring that the financing of development projects, international aid, CSR and other such things, is both ethically sourced, and ethically spent. I applied for a number of graduate programs in financial audit, and accepted an offer with a Big-4 Accountancy firm in London. I am somewhat unsure as to how I will fit in within a global corporation such as my new employer, especially given my background in ID and understanding of the impact that these such corporations can have in the developing world. However, I feel that the best way to make change is from within.
I am excited to now be starting this new chapter of my career. Although I feel I will be diverging from a career directly working within the field of ID for now, I think that spending the next 3 years qualifying as an Auditor, will put me in a good position to effectuate change within the field of ID in years to come. I am lucky though, as I will be able to continue to exercise my passion for development through the non-profit organisation I co-founded while I was working in India. Generation Mental Health was created out of the recognition of two gaps. The first being a significant gap in representation of the diverse mental health needs of different communities worldwide. That is to say that leadership in the field of global health is heavily skewed to the global north, making policy, treatment and more often culturally inappropriate. The second gap we recognised was the gap in opportunities for young people from these diverse communities to undertake capacity building opportunities necessary in order to make change at the broader level. Myself and my fellow Founder and Co-Founder realised after reflecting on our own positions, that it was only because of our western educational backgrounds, and our families financial statuses that we were able to embark on international placements at such a young age. Without the reputational support of our universities, and the financial support from our families, it would have been impossible for us to take a year out of our lives to work and learn in India. As such, we created Generation Mental Health, whose mission is to build the next generation of leaders in global mental health through providing funded capacity-building opportunities to young community leaders, especially those from low-resource settings.
Although Generation Mental Health is just over a year old, we have achieved an incredible amount since our conception. Our team and advisory boards now span over 5 continents, our campus chapters have fully launched and are expanding across campuses in the US, and our Michigan Campus Chapter will be hosting our very first conference this November (2020). I am proud to be a part of this wonderful and exciting organisation, not only does it bring me closer to my passion for development and mental health, but it allows me to learn new things every day.
Studying International Development, for me, has been a challenging yet career-moulding experience. While I now will embark on the first step of my career in an industry outside of ID, I hold close to my heart the knowledge, ethics and critical eye that I have gained through my studies. International Development is, as far as I am concerned, not a degree with the sole purpose to get you a job at the end of it. Instead it is a process of learning, critiquing and learning more, which I will keep with me for the rest of my life.
Lydia Bennett-Li