Born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana, I fell in love with the French language. Cajun French was all around me, and not just when we laissez les bons temps rouler! We would all coo at every cher bebe and quip with a mais non! or zut alors! when things went sour.
I continued to pursue French as schooling went on, and was thrilled to learn I could apply these language skills for the greater good — working in global health, supporting U.S. Agency for International Development-funded public health activities across west, central and southern Africa.
In my 15-year career, I traveled to Niger to meet with the country’s government about how to most efficiently and effectively distribute moustiquaires, or insecticide-treated bednets. While we are no strangers to pesky mosquito bites in Louisiana, outside of the U.S. the insect can carry malaria, a leading cause of death and disease in children and pregnant women worldwide.
I crossed the globe to Madagascar, a francophone island country, to conduct market research on how best to decrease the country’s astounding rates of stunting of children’s growth, a result of chronic malnutrition across many parts of the country.
Most recently, I helped to facilitate a dual French-English language meeting in Ghana, bringing 183 grassroots organizations together to share how to better their businesses to prevent and treat HIV across the continent.
Elizabeth McGehee Kiriakou
However, my dream career came to a screeching halt earlier this year. I was laid off from USAID’s Office of HIV/AIDS on Jan. 28, 2025, the day after returning from maternity leave. The office was helping to provide lifesaving medication for more than 20 million people worldwide, including more than 500,000 children with HIV; within an agency that lives depended on in 177 countries around the world was swiftly and haphazardly torn apart in less than a month.
In an attempt to help me feel better, many of my friends and family have shared that they know someone who lost their job under the Biden or first Trump administrations. Others have cited that under Clinton, more than 400,000 jobs were lost.
This is not that.
When the Clinton administration conducted its National Performance Review in 1993, it cut more than 400,000 jobs, methodically and thoughtfully. They gave the key leaders six months to determine how and when to cut down. I am one of 51,946 Americans who lost their jobs just from USAID’s shutdown in a matter of weeks. More than 100,000 more job cuts are expected globally when taking into consideration USAID’s vast network.
And those of us affected by the USAID shutdown are not just losing a job, we’re losing our entire industry of helping others — all while being called “radical lunatics” by our president along the way. Seth Middleton, an army veteran who served in the military for 21 years who was let go from USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, put it best: “USAID is neither a criminal organization nor a ball of worms. It does not deserve to die or to be thrown into the wood chipper. Rather, it is filled with patriotic Americans who have honorably served their country.”
Still, many remain happy that our money is no longer going abroad — reflecting that at least private sector workers and businesses on American soil are not being affected by these cuts.
This is not that.
Louisianans are going to suffer. Not just francophone Louisiana natives like me who found an opportunity to use their French skills in international development. Louisiana rice farmers are losing income.
Reports have noted that more than $500 million worth of food, planned for distribution to those affected by famine and starvation, is sitting and rotting in a Houston port. Louisiana institutions are losing funding. Millions in research previously funded by USAID to LSU’s AgCenter to breed resilient crops will be taken away.
And for those who were hoping that at least all of these cuts would result in significant savings to our federal budget?
This is not that.
USAID typically accounted for between 0.7-1.4% of our federal budget. So much good done around the world, jobs provided, agriculture and research funded, for so little of our taxpayer dollars.
Mais non, c’est pas ça.
Zut alors! C’est pas bon.
