I’m not a bureaucrat. I’m a Boise native who worked hard to stop deaths from malaria | Opinion

With the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, millions of people around the world have lost and will lose access to life-saving programs, medications and services.

There have been wild accusations of wasteful spending by USAID to justify its demise. Many of the accusations, like $50 million or even $100 million for condoms in Gaza are fabrications, among those mistakes acknowledged by Musk like cutting funding to fight Ebola.

The other refrain about USAID is that it is not “America First.” On the contrary, spending on USAID, which accounts for less than one-half of one percent of all federal spending, is an efficient means to spread American goodwill around the globe. Our generosity is far less expensive and destructive than foreign wars, while also an investment in expanding US economic interests.

And at the end of the day, USAID employed real Americans and Idahoans like myself.

I got my spark for public health at Interfaith Sanctuary on River Street when I was a student at Bishop Kelly High School. I spent three to five days a week, after school and on the weekends, organizing activities for shelter residents and providing tutoring to homeless high school students. My love of this work carried me to college in Utah and later, a graduate degree in public health.

Now, nine years later, the spark that started in Boise has not faded. I had a job that I loved. I worked with the kindest and hardest working people, from Washington, D.C. to Nigeria, Colorado, Montana and Malawi. And then I suddenly had to explain to the people I was helping to fight malaria that I could not help them anymore as my role with USAID had been terminated.

I am grieving a job I loved, but I continue to be inspired by those that I had the privilege of working with first as a volunteer in Boise, then an intern at the Utah Department of Health, a student in Baltimore, and recently as a USAID contractor for the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative.

People in every corner of my public health journey have been impacted by these changes. And while we all navigate the facets of unemployment, we are also still engaged and active in the work that is under attack. We are on the phone with our friends at other organizations, strategizing how to get products waiting at ports into health facilities so that taxpayer funds are not wasted. We are setting up resources to support our colleagues forced to leave their posts overseas. We are engaged, albeit tired.

The language that has been used to vilify myself and my colleagues around the world is cruel and simply false. Behind the broad brush painted about this agency, and the “bureaucrat” title in general, we are people, first and foremost.

It is a privilege to do this passion-driven work. And while I am worried about what this will all look like in the future, it’s the people that give me hope that the work will continue. To save lives. And extend kindness beyond our front doors.

This story was originally published March 5, 2025 at 4:00 AM.