Feb. 7, 2025 — Hannah sits at home in Arlington today waiting for her furlough with USAID to begin at 11:59 pm tonight. It was on Friday, Jan. 24 that she first learned through a leaked memo from the State Department that her job was on the line after President Trump issued an Executive Order on dismantling USAID, the independent agency of the Federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. She worked for a contractor to USAID, and says she has to wait to see what her company says. “They said it was very bad and they would not be able to sustain their business for more than 30-60 days without assistance from USAID.”

The first thing that had hit her was the two executive orders issued on Jan. 20 on gender identity and on diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion. “I had to immediately remove the many articles I’d written on gender identity and disability inclusion from the USAID website.”

She says she still feels the grief and anger she felt that first day and has spent a lot of time in tears. “But it also lit a fire under me to save my job and career but also democracy. I not only lost my job and career but also my safety as an American. I’m truly afraid for what is to come next.” 

Hannah has been in the field for 10 years with two years in the Peace Corps in Cameroon followed by her career with a contractor for USAID working in international development. She works in a technical capacity to advance the rights of women, ethnic and religious minorities by helping develop strategies and project activities to integrate human rights into development programs. 

“Now I worry about what happens when people can’t get their malaria drugs or HIV medication and underrepresented groups who are being bullied and the lack of human rights where they live.” Hannah says she has managed budgets of up to $125 million, built project team capacity, supervised staff and coordinated cross-functional teams. She has spent most of her career in the local Arlington-D.C. area but spent 2-3 weeks in other countries such as Iraq, Madagascar and Vietnam.

But Hannah said despite her emotions she couldn’t sit and wait to see what would happen. “I wrote letters to my representative and senators and created a template which I sent to about 100 friends that they could send out as well. It said our jobs are on the line and this threatens democracy.”

Feb. 9 — Hannah says this is what kept her going. “I went to the protest on Wednesday, and there were thousands of people there. It felt encouraging that I wasn’t alone, that I was fighting the good fight.” She says she had been disappointed — “Where are the Dems?” But Hannah said the protest gave her more confidence in the Congress. “I heard Senators Kane and Warner and others really explain what they are doing and that they had been hearing us.”

Hannah says she is spending her time looking for another job and for other companies that fit her values and her needs. But she has been talking to other friends in the government who are now facing a freeze and looking for jobs, too, in a very competitive job market. 

This job was more to Hannah than making a wage; she says she considered it a core part of her identity and “woke up every morning excited to make an impact. But overnight my dreams along with my identity and passion were torn apart.” She explains, when they took down the USAID website all of the institutional knowledge, notes on projects, reports were wiped out. “Our work was far from over.” She says she was working on projects to craft a vision for expanding employment opportunities for people with disabilities in the tourism sector of a West Asian country. And improve rehab for people with disabilities impacted by Agent Orange in Vietnam.

Hannah says her job working with a USAID contractor is not affected by the temporary injunction. “I am still furloughed. I closed my work email account officially Friday and Monday will be difficult because I won’t be logging into work for the first time.” 

Wednesday, Feb. 12. “Today things got even worse. The head of communications at my employer informed me that Elon Musk doxxed me along with two of my colleagues by retweeting someone who posted a screenshot of a LinkedIn post discussing our work advancing gender equality and social inclusion in USAID projects, and it mentioned my name … the result is that I had to set my LinkedIn profile to completely private which is disheartening because it makes it more difficult for recruiters to look me up to learn more about my work.”

Thursday, Feb. 13. Hannah has little hope that the court injunction could help her situation. “I have very little hope because the courts move very slowly and the current White House Administration has already shown to refuse to follow the court orders for other matters.”

Friday, Feb. 14. Hannah is waiting to hear from her employer on what the news might mean for her regarding the judge who ruled late Thursday that the Trump Administration must reverse the stop work temporarily on existing USAID contracts. “The concern is that my employer still hasn’t been paid for their work between November and January and so they can’t continue the work until they get paid.” And Hannah adds that several USAID contacts focusing on climate change, and gender equality including gender-based violence in South Africa are receiving termination notices which are illegal because termination notices require 30 days advance notice and strong justification. 

Monday, Feb. 17. Now Hannah is figuring how to use her experience and skills in a different industry. Hannah has applied for about 20 jobs in the last week and has had one phone interview today for a project manager position. “And I would say I still have hope. It will get worse before it gets better. But I try to see some of what is left and hope we can reverse all actions. I do hope after we hit the lowest of lows that we can rebuild democracy. I will be the first in line to rebuild.”