About Our Internship

Involving the Youth in the Mitigation of Antimicrobial Misuse  and Antimicrobial Resistance: Cohort 3

The Ducit Blue Foundation 2023 One-Health Pan-African Internship/Mentorship program for recent graduates

Know, Stop, Protect the Future!

According to the WHO, Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) is one of the top 13 global health security challenges for the next decade[1]. It is seemingly becoming a pandemic, and disproportionately affects people in low-resource settings. One-Health professionals have an essential role in the prevention and control of AMR. In 2019, bacterial AMR was associated with more than 4.95 million deaths, and directly related to 1.2 million deaths globally.  One-Health professionals have an essential role in the prevention and control of AMR. We need to ensure an optimal education and preparation of One-Health undergraduates and young professionals, in-order for them to play their role accordingly.

Welcome to the third edition of the Ducit Blue Foundation Internship and Mentorship Program, tailored for One-Health students across Africa. This comprehensive four-month program is strategically designed to facilitate connections with seasoned experts and peers hailing from diverse academic backgrounds across Africa. Our program stands as an innovative platform crafted specifically for recent graduates (with 1-2 years of experience) and emerging One-Health professionals.

CLICK TO APPLY FOR COHORT 3

Antimicrobial Resistance One-Health Pan-African Internship/Mentorship Program

Ducit Blue Foundation’s goal is to bridge the knowledge gap in education and training of AMR through capacity empowerment strategies, among young One-Health professionals towards reducing the burden of AMR and inappropriate AMU in Africa and beyond.

In line with current global best practices, we have in the last two years organized an internship program aimed at involving youth in the mitigation of antimicrobial misuse & antimicrobial resistance.

We have successfully collaborated with over five (5) African regional partners in the coordination of the internship, delivering six (6) core modules and facilitating project output, monitoring & evaluation, accountability learning, and communications.

TARGET AREA/BENEFICIARIES

The Target Area for the internship is Africa and the target beneficiaries are undergraduates and recent graduates of any discipline related to human health, animal health, and environmental health.

AMR PAN-AFRICAN ONE-HEALTH INTERNSHIP OBJECTIVES

The objectives of our internship program are outlined below;

  1. To provide an innovative internship platform for undergraduates, recent graduates and young One-health professionals to learn AMR prevention and control strategies and imbibe an interprofessional and multidisciplinary teamwork approach from an early onset.
  2. To inculcate knowledge on AMR national action plan development processes, situation analysis development, and review of implementation strategies.
  3. To identify and better understand the role of doctors, pharmacists, vets, agriculture, and microbiologists in the fight against AMR, including in line with the global and national action plans and other targeted framework tools.
  4. To identify gaps in human medicine, pharmacy, veterinary, agriculture, and microbiology students’ training curricula across the sub-Saharan Africa region. 

Overall, our internship programs aim to increase young people’s understanding of the importance of using antibiotics correctly in order to control antibiotic resistance.

INTERNSHIP DURATION

 The total duration of our Pan-African One-health internship program is 3 – 6 months.

The planned activities for the internship period are:

  • Virtual learning sessions facilitated by selected African Professionals
  • Group Activities
  • Capstone Project

The overall objectives will have a One-Health inclusive approach

INTERNSHIP APPROACH

  1. Selection of Interns

DBF will coordinate a remote AMR internship/mentorship program for undergraduate, and recent graduates. To select the interns, DBF will partner with One-Health student associations from various African universities.

Application is open to Africans who are undergraduates and recent graduates of any discipline related to human health, animal health, and environmental health and are members of One-Health students associations.

  1. Selection of Mentors

DBF and One-Health student associations with the support of the quadripartite plus agencies and other partners will nominate appropriate mentors from their networks, as well as other national and regional organizations.

The goal is to include people with multidisciplinary careers in line with the diverse internship, to identify potential mentors.

Core Modules Of The Internship Program

  1. Building The Foundation of AMR Awareness and One-Health Strategies
  2. Policy Framework Development
  3. Media Engagement as Part of The National Actional Plan (NAP) Implementation
  4. Leading With Your Value: Building Leadership Qualities
  5. Fundamentals of Research and Publication
  6. AMR Awareness: A Journalist’s Story
  7. Data Management, Collection, Analysis and, visualization.
  8. The Capstone Project
  9. Changing The Narrative, Accountability, And Career Development

Applying for the program

Applying for the program will be seamless and this will be a life-changing experience for successful applicants. We also encourage the applicants to go through the application guidelines and requirements before applying. We are available to attend to any clarifications and concerns.

Application Guidelines

Application is open to Africans who are undergraduates and recent graduates of any discipline related to human health, animal health, environmental health, and are members of One-Health students associations. 

Benefits of the program

The benefits of this program are endless as our post-internship survey from the past cohorts highlighted a lot of programs that the interns have embarked on upon completion of the internship. Below are some of the benefits:

  • Adopt a continuous learning perspective, which would aid them in identifying deficiencies, what causes them, and how to fill those gaps.
  • Emphasize growth-related material, making an explicit link between effort and results, prompting interns to think in terms of development.
  • Become more involved in analysis, goal setting, and follow-up.
  • Develop their research skills.
  • Connect and partner with other like-minded organizations that can support funding and other resource mobilization.

Who is involved

This internship program has been successful through the effort of a team of people and partnering organizations who have been selflessly committed to the same goal of tackling the threat of AMR.

We are thankful to all the students, one health professionals, early career professionals, experienced mentors, and key organizations (e.g FAO, South Centre) who, through their collaborative effort, have made our past internships a success.

Why young people

Africa is the youngest continent, with United Nations data showing approximately 60% of the population is under 25. This creates a huge opportunity to innovate with the youth, including future prescribers, dispensers, and users during their pre-service education, creating champions, through their involvement in mitigating AMR and developing innovative campaigns towards shaping the narrative. This is in line with our youth against antimicrobial misuse (YAAM) project, including a youth productivity and inclusiveness strategy. This internship program is a part of our efforts to promote the One-Health approach to addressing Antimicrobial resistance.

Participating Countires

All Pan African Countries

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