Elevator Speech

The Assignment (for the World Partners Fellowship):
An elevator speech is, as you may know, the 30 seconds that you have to hook someone before they lose interest. Imagine yourself in an elevator with the CEO of the Gates/Ford/Rockefeller Foundation (okay, a long elevator ride); what would you say about the NGO to make it seem like a good funding prospect? And, in this assignment, how do you describe the work that you’re doing succinctly, but in a way that makes us want to know more? Note that this should be more interesting than just reiterating the organization’s mission or your work plan.

The Speech:
India is home to the third-largest population people living with HIV in the world. My NGO – (spell out the acronym here) – began as a listserv to provide scientific updates and build a network of people working to fight the spread of HIV in India. It has since grown into an organization with offices in Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, and New York, and provides a wide range of services, from family-centered care to support centers for sexual minorities, the second largest prevention of mother to child transmission program in India to the first national directory of AIDS service organizations. The program I work with, (full program name here), works to support children affected by HIV. We focus on the family as the unit of intervention, providing child and caregiver support groups, educational scholarships, nutritional support, recreational activities, advocacy opportunities, and referrals for any medical services we can’t provide directly. We work with ten grassroots NGO partners in five high-prevalence districts of AP, providing additional staff and extensive trainings to help each NGO to scale up their child support programs. My current project is to document some of the best practices of our program, as we plan on expanding it to other high and medium HIV prevalence states in the coming year.