As an HIV tester and counselor during my university days and beyond, I learned very quickly that most people have more pressing issues to deal with in their lives than HIV prevention. At at Oberlin College, I often saw clients shortly after an unprotected sexual encounter. For most, condom use to protect against HIV and other STIs had to be negotiated alongside myriad influential experiences and other barriers – including insecurity around the sexual relationship, fear around the sexual encounter, school stress, mental illness, and financial hardship, just to name a few. The very fact that these clients had proactively sought out an HIV test, demonstrated to me that they were both aware of and concerned about HIV risk, but that the prevention methods available to them just did not meet their needs or circumstances.

When I was a college freshman, I was among the 45% of 15-29 year old students with a stated desire to work in healthcare. Like many of these young people, I didn’t initially realize that a career in health could be outside a hospital setting–but soon discovered another exciting and important avenue in public health.

The Initiative for MPTs (IMPT) is dedicated to advancing the comprehensive sexual and reproductive health of women and girls worldwide. The Secretariat staff, who manage this global learning network, comprise a group of women who have worked a combined eight decades in the women’s health and sexual and reproductive health fields. From working with underserved women in Mauritania and the Ivory Coast as Peace Corps volunteers, to HIV testing and counseling in Baltimore, to community organizing in San Francisco and Sacramento, to conducting ethnographic research in Newfoundland, to coordinating HIV prevention clinical trials in Cape Town, our team’s diverse experiences and skills have contributed to the strategic advancement of the MPT field.