During my internship at Kidogo, a social enterprise in Kenya that transforms access to quality, affordable early childhood care and education in low‑income communities through childcare franchising, I focused on research and documentation projects directly aligned with its mission. Kidogo empowers caregivers to run sustainable childcare businesses while advocating for policy reform. My primary deliverable was documenting Kidogo’s decade‑long journey through staff interviews and analyzing its role in childcare system change in Kenya. The timing was important as the organization was redesigning its franchising model to reach one million children by 2030. My work recorded past changes and provided evidence‑based guidance on strategy and vision.

My internship drew heavily on skills developed during my first year of the MPA in Development Practice at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. Courses in monitoring and evaluation equipped me with technical language and frameworks, enabling productive discussions with the Kidogo Monitoring and Evaluation team. Coursework on interviewing stakeholders, initiating research projects, and synthesizing findings prepared me to conduct staff interviews and document stories. SIPA strengthened my systems‑thinking ability, allowing me to shift from a purely implementation focus to a broader perspective that identifies structural patterns and provides strategic advice.

One challenge was the language barrier. Although English is the official language, trainings for field staff and classes in daycare centers were conducted mostly in Kiswahili to ensure participants’ engagement. This limited my ability to monitor all content or interact meaningfully with young children, especially those under four who had limited English exposure. Another challenge was navigating perceptions during visits to informal settlements like Kibera. Frequent visits from a foreigner could create the impression that centers were funded by international donors, leading parents to expect free services or resist paying fees. This risked undermining Kidogo’s efforts to position itself as a locally led, sustainable social enterprise. These challenges highlighted my positionality as a foreign intern and reinforced the importance of cultural sensitivity, perception management, and adapting methods to local contexts.

This internship was a valuable learning experience. Professionally, it deepened my understanding of how a social enterprise can operate effectively within a development ecosystem and work with government to advocate for policy reform. I learned how organizational flexibility and a culture of continuous improvement encourage innovation. Personally, I gained greater appreciation for teamwork and adaptability. As a short‑term, foreign intern conducting staff interviews, I had to build rapport quickly and gather meaningful insights. Participating in a team‑building event with more than one hundred Kenyan staff members allowed me to learn about different cultures and languages and to form warm connections. The experience reaffirmed my preference for organizations embedded in local contexts where I can directly observe impact and expanded my interest from child protection to early childhood development.