Apply to Mentor | Applications reviewed on a rolling basis | Application deadline: Sunday 20 September | Matching confirmed by 23 September
A six-week project sprint for people building high-impact careers in global health, and one weekly conversation from you. Run jointly by Effective Altruism South Africa, Effective Altruism Nigeria, and Health Progress Hub.
Academic and theoretical training teaches key frameworks, but tackling real-world challenges requires practical experience. Mentors fill this gap by sharing practical insights, context, and strategies. With just 45 minutes a week, you can help guide participants to turn abstract theory into real-world impact.
🎯 At a Glance
What you do | Mentor a team or solo fellow through a six-week project consisting of research, stakeholder engagement, an official interview, advocacy, or scoping |
Time commitment | The total time commitment for the project sprint depends on the number of groups mentored. 1= ±25 hrs; 2 = ±40 hrs; 3 = ±55 hrs spread over 6 weeks. |
Duration | In total, mentors are engaged for ±3 months from end September to Early December.
Weekly mentorship runs rom 5 October to 15 November. |
Format | Fully remote |
Who we're looking for | Practitioners, researchers, or professionals with real experience in some part of global health and development. |
Matched by | Mentors are matched based on alignment with a specific project topic; please refer to the project menu for details. |
Load | Mentors can choose how many teams to support; up to 3. |
Compensation | Mentors receive a stipend depending on the number of groups mentored and the number of weeks for each. |
Application process | You complete the application form. We invite potential mentors to a screening call. Successful mentors are onboarded and matched to projects. |
Questions |
💭 What is this, and what's the job?
This project sprint is designed to support fellows complete a project with real-world impact.
What the program cannot supply on its own is your expertise: an experienced practitioner who has navigated the global health space and can identify where their analysis falls short.
You are not running the project. The team owns the work, the deadline, and the deliverable. Your job is to:
- Meet with your mentees weekly, and provide them with motivation and guidance to stick to the program and complete their project.
- Manage project scope: Fellows have only 6 weeks, and limited hours per person. Guide teams early and constructively to keep their focus disciplined so that they complete their deliverable in time.
- Support fellows develop high-quality projects: Evaluate the underlying methodology and structural logic of the work rather than proofreading writing. Spot unexamined assumptions and unverified claims that fellows may easily overlook.
- Apply objective evaluation standards: Evaluate final deliverables consistently using the established rubric, maintaining the shared scoring standards established during calibration.
You are not expected to be a subject-matter expert in the fellow's exact topic. You're matched by broad fit — health economics, policy, advocacy, careers, data — and you’re expected to provide high-level guidance.
🚀 Why mentor
- Direct impact. Guide research from concept to completion, shaping high-value deliverables by providing expertise where applicable.
- Efficient trial period: Offers a manageable way to evaluate an interest in high-level mentoring, with returning mentors receiving priority onboarding for future projects and programmes.
- Formal recognition. Receive public credit on publicised deliverables, with full autonomy over whether to serve as a professional reference for team members.
- Talent identification. Gain early, direct visibility into high-performing emerging talent in the field for future hiring, collaboration, or research projects
👥 Mentor-Mentee matching
- Targeted topic matching: You will be paired with one team (1–6 fellows) based on alignment with the project menu.
- Track B matching: You may be matched with a fellow working a self proposed project. All self-proposed projects pass a rigorous preliminary review including the case for importance, neglectedness, and tractability before reaching you. Consequently, your role focuses on evaluating execution strategy rather than re-evaluating the validity of the core idea.
📋 The project menu (Track A)
Each project is pre-scoped. Full descriptions — deliverable, milestones, mentor profile — are in the project menu document. Below is a summary:
# | Main project theme | Sub theme | Description |
1 | Market Shaping | Anatomy of a Broken Supply Chain | Traces why specific essential medicines chronically stock out — mapping every actor from API manufacturer to health facility and finding where the chain breaks and why. |
2 | Market Shaping Frameworks Repository | Collects the public frameworks organisations use to decide when and how to intervene in a broken medicines market, plus publicised analyses of deals actually made — annotating each: what question it answers, what inputs it needs, where it has been applied | |
3 | Health Financing and Reform Case Studies | Earmarks after passage | Reconstructs how a country passed and kept a tax earmarked for health — who pushed it, the sequence of decisions, who resisted, and whether the money actually reached health budgets |
4 | Procurement reforms | Reconstructs how a country changed the way it buys medicines or health services — the reform's design, who carried it, the resistance, and what changed in practice | |
5 | Donor transitions | Reconstructs how a country replaced departing donor money — Gavi or Global Fund graduation, PEPFAR drawdown — with domestic financing: what was promised, what was budgeted, what actually got paid | |
6 | Pilots that Scaled | Pilots That Scaled | Builds a register of health pilots that reached national adoption — and matched non-adoptions — then reconstructs a subset as short case briefs: what carried the pilot to scale or didn't |
7 | Medicine Registration and Guideline Lag | Medicine Registration Gap | For each medicine, finds two dates — first stringent approval or WHO pre-qualification, and first appearance on a country's national medicines register — and records the gap between them |
8 | The Medicine Guideline Clock | Tracks how quickly countries adopt WHO treatment recommendations into national guidelines—using WHO policy tables as the baseline date and official national documents as proof of adoption. | |
9 | Community Health Workers | Who decides what CHWs do | For 3 countries, documents which institution actually sets the CHW task list, how tasks get added or removed, and what evidence each task has behind it |
10 | How CHWs got paid | Traces, country by country, how Community Health Worker cohorts moved from volunteer status to salaried — the dated decisions, budget lines, and who paid at each step | |
11 | Digital and AI Tools for Community Health Workers | Inventories both waves of digital/mHealth Community Health Worker tools, their current status, and scores each against conditions for surviving past pilot stage | |
12 | Environmental Determinants | Mapping Africa's Air Quality — The Air Monitoring Census | For ~20 African countries, records whether a legal PM2.5 standard exists and whether any regulatory-grade government monitor is actually operating — including what changed after US embassy monitors stopped publishing in March 2025 |
13 | Blood-Lead Surveillance Gaps — Where the Numbers Are | For African countries, records whether representative blood-lead data exists — and for countries without it, which upcoming DHS/MICS survey round could carry a blood-lead module | |
14 | The Laws That Worked | For laws that measurably reduced a health harm, reconstructs how enforcement actually happened — who acted, what changed on the ground, what the before/after evidence shows — against an evidence standard stated up front |
⏱️ Time commitment
This is the breakdown of the expected time commitment needed to guide one fellow or team:
Item | Hrs | Basis |
Application and screening call | 1.00 | one-off |
Mentor onboarding | 1.50 | one-off |
Kickoff attendance | 1.50 | one-off, optional |
Reading the proposal, intro to the team | 0.75 | per team |
Weekly check-ins × 6 | 10.50 | per team |
Week-4 midpoint review write-up | 1.00 | per team |
Week-6 full-draft read | 1.00 | per team |
Ad hoc contact, rescheduling, chasing | 3.00 | per team |
Showcase attendance | 2.00 | one-off, optional |
Rubric calibration exercise | 1.00 | one-off |
Rubric scoring and written feedback | 1.50 | per team |
Debrief | 0.25 | one-off |
Hours for 1 team mentored | ~17.75-21.5 |
Hours for 1, 2 and 3 teams mentored:
Number | Mandatory | Maximum |
1:1 | 21.5 | 25.0 |
1:2 | 39.25 | 42.75 |
1:3 | 57.0 | 60.5 |
Take note
Strict submission deadlines: Teams must submit deliverables at least 24 hours prior to a meeting. Late submissions decrease your time to review the materials and prepare, and damage the value of the meeting.
Asynchronous communication buffer: Inactive teams still require administrative oversight, including follow-up messaging and schedule coordination. Please factor this buffer into your overall time management.
📖 How the six mentorship weeks work
Week | Key Milestone | Description |
1 | Project plan confirmation | Teams develop a research question along with a deliverable specification that outlines the expected length, format, required sections, and task ownership for each team member. |
2 | Check in | Project work, mentor check-in |
3 | Mid-point review | A mid-program review to assess whether projects are on track, should descope, or redirect if needed. |
4 | Check in | Project work, mentor check-in |
5 | Draft submitted | Draft with every section present is due |
6 | Final edits & Submission | Final feedback and edits. Submission and project sign-off. |
After submission, projects are assessed, and participants with high-quality are invited to present a showcase, and will have their projects publicised.
Descoping at week 3 is a strategic win, not a compromise. Mentors should establish this mindset early, ensuring teams understand that a tightly executed project scores higher on the rubric than an overly broad effort. Setting this expectation early prevents teams from perceiving necessary scope reductions as damage control.
🚧 Where you have a specific sign-off role
Most projects, official interviews, surveys, stakeholder roundtables, co-design workshops, feasibility scoping need no extra process from you beyond the normal review.
A narrower band of activity needs your sign-off before it goes ahead: collecting data from members of the public, or a small non-clinical pilot inside a host organisation's own operations. If your team proposes something in this band, it needs four things before it starts: A named accountable person at the host organisation, your sign-off on the design, a consent and data-handling plan compliant with POPIA or NDPR, and a stated plan for what happens at week 6. If any of those four is missing, it isn't ready to sign off on yet send it back rather than approving it provisionally.
Out of scope entirely, no sign-off available: anything involving patients, minors, or people in crisis; personal health data; advice, screening, or referral; distributing anything; or a community pilot that creates a service expectation the team can't honour after week 6. If a team proposes something in this band, the answer is no.
✅ Project Scoring Rubric
Level | Label | What it looks like |
1 | Emerging | Deliverable is incomplete or difficult to understand for an external audience. Outputs are surface-level, lack methodology detail, or fail to address the core problem, offering limited value to stakeholders working in the focus area. |
2 | Developing | Deliverable addresses the topic but contains key gaps in analysis or presentation. The output is partially complete or relies on unverified assumptions, making it difficult for an external organization to directly use for decisions or programs without significant rework. |
3 | Accomplished | Deliverable is high quality, complete, and clearly structured for an external audience. The methodology is applied thoroughly, and the output provides clear, actionable value that practitioners in the focus area can immediately use for program or policy decisions. (Minimum standard for publicisation) |
4 | Exemplary | Meets all Level 3 criteria, with exceptional rigor, clarity, and presentation. Demonstrates direct real-world utility, such as active interest or engagement from a partner organization, a clear adoption path, or analytical insights that significantly advance the focus area's work. |
5 | Outstanding | Meets all Level 4 criteria and achieves tangible external adoption or immediate real-world implementation. The output serves as a high-impact, decision-ready asset already being integrated into programs or informing active strategy by relevant sector partners. |
A team at level 1–2 by the week-three midpoint is the signal worth a mentor conversation.
Work that meets the publicity bar goes live on the Effective Altruism South Africa, Effective Altruism Nigeria, or Health Progress Hub platforms with your name on it. Work that doesn't get the required score receives written feedback and an explanation.
📅 Key dates for mentors
Date | What happens |
Early September | Mentor recruitment open; screening calls |
20 Sept | Application deadline |
By 23 Sept | Matched to a team; mentor onboarding |
Wed 30 Sept - Fri 2 Oct | Kickoff call |
Mon 5 Oct | Kickoff call and week 1 begins |
5 Oct - 15 Nov | Six weekly check-ins, plus the week-3 midpoint gate |
Sun 25 Oct | Mid program review checkpoint |
Sun 8 Nov | Project draft due |
Sun 15 Nov | Final deliverables die |
16–18 Nov | Rubric scoring and written feedback due |
Wed 25 Nov | Virtual showcase, 17:00–19:00 GMT+2, recorded |
By Fri 4 Dec | Mentor debrief |
❓ FAQ
Do I need to be an expert in my team's exact topic? No. You're matched on a broad subject-matter fit, and the calibration session plus the rubric give you what you need to review work outside your specific niche. What you're checking is whether the reasoning holds.
What if my team goes quiet? Do your best to engage and motivate them - and let us know if your team experiences any challenges. We’ll be around to support.
What if I can't make a session for one week? Reschedule directly with your team where you can; flag it to EASA if it's going to affect the midpoint or final read, since those two have the least slack in the schedule.
Can I mentor more than one team? Yes, but pay special attention to the time commitment required.
What's the stipend? You can view the stipend structure here.
☀️ About the three organisations
Effective Altruism South Africa
Supports people to maximise the impact of their resources and careers, through capacity-building programmes, career advising, and community. Since 2024: 160+ programme completions, ~24 high-impact roles accepted, ~5 high-impact initiatives launched.
Website Facebook LinkedIn Instagram Youtube Mailing list
Email: hello@effectivealtruism.co.za
Effective Altruism Nigeria
Builds and supports the community of people in Nigeria working on the world's most pressing problems.
Website Facebook LinkedInEmail: info@eanigeria.org
Health Progress Hub
Works on research and advocacy for global health progress, with a focus on neglected problems and African contexts.
Website LinkedIn SubstackEmail: info@healthprogresshub.org
✍️ How to apply
Apply to Mentor | Applications reviewed on a rolling basis | Application deadline: Friday 18 September | Matching confirmed by 23 September
Screening is a short call, not a formal interview: your background, the parts of global health and development you know well, and your availability across the six-week window. If it looks like a fit, you'll be matched to a team by 23 September and onboarded before kickoff.
Questions: hello@effectivealtruism.co.za or info@eanigeria.org