Alanna Shaikh has lived in Egypt, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, where her son was born in 2006. Along with her husband and son, she currently lives in Washington, DC in an extended family household with her parents and three small dogs. Alanna, her husband, and her mom juggle care for her son with care for her father, who has Alzheimer's Disease. She has worked for international NGOs, international companies, the United Nations and now the US State Department, where she is involved in foreign assistance to Central Asia. She has held jobs ranging from Human Papillomavirus laboratory assistant to managing humanitarian aid programs in Iraq – the common thread is her passion for international service. She speaks Russian, Uzbek, French, and Arabic. Alanna is passionate about mentoring younger women into international careers and helping people learn how they can be part of changing the world for the better. She blogs about international health and development at Blood & Milk – http://alannashaikh.blogspot .com.
I’m one of those people lucky enough to be comfortable speaking in public. I always have been, so I don’t have any useful tips on how to overcome that fear. I can tell you this much -...
I got fired from my first job after college. It’s now over ten years ago, so I don’t have to tell the story at job interviews any more, but I was well and truly fired from my first real...
I recently ran into a blog written by a young person (I will assume a woman, but I am not sure) who was frustrated with her attempts to volunteer abroad. She wanted some kind of international...
A few months ago I was contacted by an old friend. We hadn’t been extremely close, but she was someone I spent a lot of time with in the mid-nineties. It had been five years since we lost...
I’ve had a lot of internships. Five of them, to be exact. Three were okay, one was a failure, and one succeeded beyond my wildest hopes. I have also supervised my share of eager young interns....