If you want the best from your employees, you must invest in them. —Moise Samaké, Muso’s Director of Human Resources
In Muso’s eleven years of operations, we have both formally and informally partnered with the NGO Tostan, designing our proactive health care system to work in synergy with Tostan’s community organizing and nonformal education programs. Through this partnership, the Muso team first met Mohammed Traoré –a young Master’s student from the University of Bamako looking for relevant, professional work experience, who came to Muso as an Education Intern.
Since our founding, Muso has seen 3,000x growth as an evidence-based, data-driven organization working to reduce child and maternal mortality, and alleviate health injustices. As we collected mountains of data and conducted research and studies to help support the work we were doing, Mohammed’s work experience, education, and professional goals led to him becoming a data entry clerk, working to wrangle these numerous data points.
In 2012, Mohammed went into the field, joining our program team to collect Community Health Worker data door-to-door as part of an ongoing study. Later, he began working on projects involving pharmaceutical data in our government-run partner clinic.
In 2014, with a M.S in Education in hand, dense spreadsheets before him, and exposure to Muso’s research driven philosophy, Mohammed embraced his interest in the fields of research design and data management, and became Data Manager for our Department of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation. To further develop his skills and ensure he was well equipped to excel in his role, Muso awarded Mohammed a professional development stipend. Since being hired in Muso’s Research Department, Mohammed has been instrumental in refining Muso’s surveys and research protocols for our expansion into 8 new rural sites.
Moise Samaké, Muso’s Director of Human Resources, annually adds a line item to Muso’s budget specifically for professional development. Muso’s Professional Development program includes a commitment by the recipients—three each year—to reinvest their work in Muso. “In this way,” Moise says, “both the employee and the organization benefit from the investment of capacity building.”
This October, Mohammed will begin a three-year program in computer sciences, with the goal of mastering data sciences, and eventually pursuing a doctorate. I can already tell doors are opening, Mohammed beams.