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The opportunity to be in such a multicultural
learning environment was something unique that only
the MPP offered. Other programs offer an international
aspect, but UNU-MERIT is an international hub. She likes to
remember that there were almost one hundred nationalities
in her cohort. She feels as if she had traveled the world
during that year in Maastricht. When Arushi tells me this
I realize that Arushi is saying something very significant.
The MPP was not her first time outside of India. Arushi is
well traveled, and she had visited many countries before
doing the MPP, nevertheless, she still feels that the Masters
at Maastricht was the biggest of her global voyages.
violence and they are provided educational, food and wellbeing
facilities to break the vicious cycle of poverty for
their families. The other partner NGO provides education
and self-employment opportunities to women of a tribal
community so that they can themselves provide basic
needs to their families. All this work is only the beginning
of a successful career that Arushi hopes will allow her
to make a significant positive impact in the world.
Back in New Delhi, Arushi now feels more confident
of the unique international perspective that Maastricht
offered her. Her new extensive network of smart and
ambitious future global leaders is also motivating. She now
can address policy issues through policy interventions thanks
to the MPP. She tells me that UNU brought her closer to her
goal of working on poverty issues in an international setting.
Since she studied in Maastricht, Arushi has
focused her career on policy action with international
organizations such as GIZ, Includovate, and ConnectAID. In
one of her professional roles after the MPP Arushi worked
with BRAC USA as a policy professional for a project on
extreme poverty in Ethiopia. During this experience, Arushi
worked on a landscape policy analysis project to evaluate
government policy interventions in Ethiopia that targeted
extreme poverty and provide possible interventions
for the organization. This role allowed her to put into
practice the knowledge she acquired during the MPP.
More recently, Arushi has joined ConnectAID,
a Swiss-based organization which works to achieve
the SDGs by 2030. As a program coordinator for the
NGOs and partnerships division, Arushi coordinates
with partner organizations abroad, including
some in South Asia which work on the SDGs .
Very recently Arushi was part of ConnectAID’s India
Mission, an effort to do site visits of the organization’s NGO
partners that are working specifically in poverty related
issues along with capturing their impact driven work.
In this role, Arushi visited various local sites of
the partner NGOs in India where poverty and inequality
affect the most vulnerable. Arushi was especially glad to
be able to work with two of her local partner NGOs since
they offer help to women and children, the most vulnerable
populations that she had encountered earlier in her legal
career. In this opportunity she could fulfill her goal of
working on the ground on identifying possible interventions
targeting poverty related issues as well as basic human
rights. One of the NGOs partners helps children from the
slum areas who have been abusers of drug and domestic
I ask Arushi how she feels about what the MPP
did for her, and she does not hide her enthusiasm. She
is confident, the MPP opened many opportunities for her.
Perhaps that is what many of us hoped the MPP or the
PhD would be, a “window of opportunity” to enter the
world of public policy work. And so Arushi can confirm to
any aspiring MPPer that the masters is the right move if
you want to expand your career path. When chatting
with Arushi about her experiences one feels inspired. She
reminds us of the unique and unforgettable opportunity
we had as students in Maastricht, of the significant lessons
learned, and the many friends and colleagues we gained.
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