Ating'ah Laurah

I believe my enthusiasm and excellent knowledge of the UHC landscape in Low and Middle-Income Countries is my greatest asset. I possess proven experience effectively managing consultants and other human resources for high performance. I am certain I can contribute this level of performance to your team, and I invite you to consider my qualifications and accomplishments .

My professional experience encompasses over 8 years consecutively in supporting and managing UHC-related projects. During this time, I successfully managed and delivered a wide range of projects. I have developed a practical and analytical approach, initiative, creativity, perseverance, determination, and an ability to think laterally.

My background documents excellence in keeping meeting records and communicating decisions to stakeholders as appropriate, supporting onboarding/refresher sessions for new and existing facilitators, and the community of practice for technical facilitators, and collaborating with the M&E workstream to identify and follow up on potential challenge. Additionally, I’m proficient in MS Office (especially Excel and PowerPoint) with strong quantitative and analytical skills.

I possess excellent written and verbal communication (fluency in speaking, reading, and writing in English), negotiation, and networking skills, with the ability to prioritize and multitask. As a professional with vast experience engaging diverse and highly technical stakeholders and partners toward common goals, I feel confident that I can bring an excellent backdrop of professional experience and welcome the opportunity to speak with you to explore ways in which I can make a substantial contribution .

PROGRAM & OPERATIONS OFFICER | 12/2020 – PRESENT 

Overall Purpose: Responsible for building and strengthening the advocacy program as well as overseeing the project’s strategic and day-to-day operations

Project: Advocacy projects, Livelihood projects, and Behavior change projects

Project Planning & Management 

• Provides work direction and leadership to assigned projects, including scheduling, assignment of work, and review of project efforts.
• Develops, and continually updates, project plans and schedules, and develops product breakdown structures. 

Monitoring & Evaluation 

• Establishes and manages a monitoring and evaluation framework with specific goals, outcomes, inputs, outputs, processes, indicators, data needs, and sources as well as reporting templates and frequency, for effective monitoring, reporting, and updating of the progress of programs and projects
• Plans and schedules for quarterly reviews to enhance changes in internal processes for smooth operations 

Social Media Strategy 

• Organized social media strategy with the team which led to a better boost on Twitter and new engagements on Instagram.

Stakeholder Management 

• Develops and maintains productive working relationships with business owners, project sponsors, vendors, and key clients.

Resource Management 

• Estimates costs associated with a project including physical, financial, and human capital costs. 
• Develops a detailed cost baseline from cost estimations, refines project cost estimates, and confirms funding sources. 
• Monitors and controls the actual cost of a project versus the budget. 

Partnerships Management 

• Drafts agreements with the project manager with new partners which helps the organization to be clear in the angle of partnerships agreed upon.

Reporting 

• Develops timely technical/donor reports on the project’s progress

SHUJAAZ INC 

PROGRAMS & PARTNERSHIP ASSISTANT | 05/2019 – 11/2020

Overall Purpose: Responsible for coordinating, managing, and completing a range of project management, monitoring, evaluation, and supporting donor relations/partnership

Projects – SRH, Financial Capability, Governance, Inclusion of PWD, Wildlife and conservation & Wash 

• Participated in monitoring and coordination of 6 major projects, 7 local partners, and 13 international donors which lead to the successful implementation of the project which focused on sexual reproductive health, covid-19, livelihood, governance, wildlife conservation, water sanitation, and hygiene.
• Actively involved in the coordination of different departments which fed into the programs department and this led to the organization meeting deliverables which had been set with different partners.
• Supervised a team of 6, 2 in Nairobi, 2 in Mombasa, and 2 in Kisumu on a sexual reproductive health project which lead to a successful implementation until the closure of that project.
• Actively took part in internal reports and partner reports at the end of every month which helped us update partners on what had been done and what had been achieved.
• Planned, arranged, and coordinated the quarterly reviews for the whole organization this helped the whole team to come up with new ideas and approaches which would help us reach our audience in Kenya.
• Liaised with international partners and other parties to ensure project success 
• Assisted in making budgets, allocation of budgets, and ensuring it was used accordingly, this helped in ensuring there was proper cost management.
• Assisted the Head of Programs and Partnership in the preparation of any document which she would need relevant to any project for presentations.
• Ensured there was proper recruitment and payment of suppliers were done according to Shujaaz Inc’s financial policy.
• Supported the learning and development initiatives by ensuring all success stories were captured in the comic magazines. 

LVCT HEALTH

FIELD OFFICER | 01/2018 – 05/2019

Overall Purpose: Responsible for coordinating the day-to-day operations of the DREAMS program at the implementation ward.

Project- Dreams Project

• Trained and mentored 31,500 adolescent girls and young women on Evidence-Based Interventions which helped them gain knowledge on HIV/AIDS, Sexual Reproductive Health, Behavior Change, Entrepreneurship, and Human Rights.
• Assisted the data and monitoring and evaluation team in updating data in the system and the physical files which allowed a seamless process of paying for school fees for the beneficiaries and business start-up processes.

I CHOOSE LIFE, AFRICA

FIELD OFFICER | 09/2014 – 12/2017

Overall Purpose: Responsible for coordinating the day-to-day operations of the DREAMS program at the implementation ward.

Project- Dreams Projects

• Trained and mentored 15,000 adolescent girls and young women on Evidence-Based Interventions which helped them gain knowledge on HIV/AIDS, Sexual Reproductive Health, Behavior Change, Entrepreneurship, and Human Rights.
• Organized and participated in 2 gender technical working group meetings which brought together organizations in Kisumu County that deal with issues of sexual and gender-based violence.
• Assisted the data and monitoring and evaluation team in updating data in the system which allowed a seamless process of paying for school fees for the beneficiaries.
• Assisted a group of girls in working on their talent which led to them applying and getting uwezo funds so that they could open a Salon in Kisumu County.

Masters in Development Studies | St. Paul’s University | 2020 – 2023

Bachelor of Arts (International Relations & Diplomacy) | Maseno University | 2013 – 2017

Diploma in Human Resource Management | Kenya Institute of Management | 2011 – 2012