All of Rika Gabriel's Comments + Replies

Hi Siobhan, jumping in for Ollie to answer your question as I’m currently supporting this hiring round. We currently have 150+ applicants for this role so far.

Lorenzo, thank you so much! Glad it resonated with you & again, huge congratulations on your permanent residency 🥂

Really appreciate the kind words & glad it resonated with you, Sarmad!

Aww, Ula! Thank you so much for being there during those years—you know how messy some of it really was behind the scenes. Your words mean a lot! You're right that the systems are deeply flawed and many times, unfair. What's not covered in this post is how long it took for these lessons about limitations to truly land for me. I felt powerless and hurt in many situations, and I was lucky to have people who supported me emotionally during that time, along with other advantages that some people may not have.

Also, I appreciate you sharing your own challenges t... (read more)

Thank you so much for the feedback and the kind words! I was trying to strike that balance between personal narrative and broader relatability, so it's validating to hear it landed for you.

Great point about sharing what felt unusually lucky or advantageous—I'll definitely weave more of both sides into future posts. 

A few things come to mind where I felt unusually lucky in: I had English fluency from a young age (schools in the Philippines taught English, and I read constantly) and access to top schools partly due to doing well on standardized exams, w... (read more)

This doesn't directly answer your question, but building on Calum's and Dee's points - I think it might also be helpful to first clarify what approach you're taking in your job search, since different strategies have very different success rates and timelines.

It might be helpful to think of job searching as existing on a spectrum - on one end, you have applying through job boards and official channels, and on the other end, you have less structured approaches like networking, volunteering and turning that into a full-time role, creating your own side proje... (read more)

Thank you for taking the time to read our paper and share your feedback on our work! Right now, we are working to compare the total DALYs from MHDSCs to the total DALYs from all the diseases included in the GBD. We may also include more baselines to compare the scale and neglectedness of mental health in the Philippines to that of other countries/causes.

I  also appreciate your input on the further work that we can do. For the next phase of our research, we may focus on describing (and maybe evaluating) existing interventions/projects/organizations tha... (read more)