In 2000 she had met her now project partner in Austria with whom she has stayed in contact over the years. Her first stay in Austria was in 2005 when she was awarded a North-South-Dialogue Scholarship – financed by the Austrian Development Cooperation.
Since 2010 she has been actively engaged in mobile health projects for maternal and child health programmes. With the TEMACC project Rahel Bekele Teklegiorgis and her team hope to realise the potentials of ICT to positively impact the lives of rural women in Ethiopia.
The APPEAR programme advocates for the incorporation of gender mainstreaming perspectives at programme and project level. The leadership of female project coordinators in projects is one out of countless possible measure and initiative. By doing so they act as role models at their respective institutions and in particular for the next generation of scientists, but they also gain valuable experiences for future academic paths.