Passionate About Paying It Forward: Matthew Thielker is committed to advocating for food security and inclusive recruitment practices

As a Peace Corps volunteer in Cambodia focused on community health education, Matthew Thielker was transformed by the experience: “It was at once frustrating, challenging, sobering, and energizing. It was a rare opportunity to get an up-close view of entrenched development challenges, and to meet the real people who are affected by them and stand to benefit from addressing them.”

The Nutrition Associate Advisor with USAID’s Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security is driven by those very challenges and has been committed to USAID’s aim to end poverty and malnutrition since he started supporting the Agency in January of 2020 through GHTP and GHTASC.

“It’s a privilege to have a job that’s more than just making ends meet but goes further and contributes to tackling the biggest challenges of our time. Not only that, I also get to work with colleagues who possess a deep wealth of knowledge and a drive to leverage the tools of government for positive impacts in the world. It’s a great environment to be in.”

Through his current role with the Center for Nutrition, Matthew has developed “a deeper understanding of how USAID uses acquisition and assistance instruments for evidence-based interventions, monitors results, and maintains accountability to the U.S. public.”

Alongside his regular duties, Matthew has also joined GHTASC’s outreach team in meeting with students at the Gallaudet University Career Fair, hosted by the world leading education institution for Deaf and hard-of-hearing students in Washington, D.C.

"Outreach to persons with disabilities about opportunities that support USAID is an important part of ‘paying it forward’. There is no such thing as a self-made person – I wouldn’t be where I am now without the support of countless people who did their part to break down barriers for persons with disabilities. Benefitting from that support brings with it a duty to hold the door open so that others with disabilities can also equitably contribute to our work. One small way of doing so is getting out into the community to share information about the great opportunities we have in GHTASC supporting USAID,” he explains.

“Having an identity built on the combined intersectional experiences of majority group privileges and minority group disenfranchisement has had an enormous impact on my work—and how could it not? I probably wouldn’t be in this line of work to begin with if it wasn’t for the empathy for others that those life experiences helped cultivate. On a day-to-day basis, those life experiences drive a sense of personal investment in diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives. This includes not just addressing how diverse talent is recruited and retained in the workforce, but also designing and implementing development activities and interventions so they are as inclusive as possible. When we use a DEIA lens to ensure development investments are a rising tide that lifts all boats, rather than just a select few, this translates into more effective work and responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars,” Matthew explains.

What advice does Matthew have for those entering a career in international development? “Have a clear sense of what underpins your passion for the work and be doggedly stubborn in remembering it. Development can be a rewarding field to work in, but it also comes with changing political winds, bureaucracies to navigate, and frequently needing to adjust our approaches based on new evidence. These are especially acute challenges for those doing nutrition work because malnutrition indicators such as stunting are among the most difficult to tackle and the slowest to change. Being able to remind yourself repeatedly what it is about the work that sparks your passion will serve you well when the day-to-day makes it harder to stay focused on the end results we’re all working towards.”

Read more from Matthew at https://agrilinks.org/users/mthielker.