My name is Emily-Rose, and I interned with Équitas – The center for international human rights education, this summer. At the beginning of this internship, I was a Sociology major with a minor in Anthropology and African studies. Still, my time spent with this organization impacted me so much that I changed my minor to be in Social Entrepreneurship. I have always been interested in and worked with non-governmental organizations because, as a marginalized person, I have always had a passion for helping others less fortunate than myself. This, however, was my first time working with a human rights education organization. They work to create and provide educational content for human rights providers all around the world, and I was working with the team that organized the Global Rights Connection, a hybrid program designed to do just that.
I wanted to do this internship because I wanted to gain insight into how the content was created to educate these people and how organizing an event such as the global rights connection takes place. My learning objective was to learn more about the inner workings of NGOs as well as learn how to create human rights-related educational content. As an intern, I got to write the good practice document for the program, translate documents, as well as develop introductory videos for the program. A highlight of the program for me was being able to listen to participant interviews from the last edition of the program, seeing how the program really impacted the lives of the participants and how they used it to make meaningful changes in their respective communities. At the end of the program, the participants were also mandated to make individual action plans that they would put in place following the completion of the program. Hearing about the work being done in communities worldwide was very inspiring to me. The most notable to me was the work being done in west Africa relating to AIDS because it is very close to my heart. Seeing people speak about the way they spearheaded movements and organizations pushed me to want to learn more about social entrepreneurship, hence my minor change. I wanted to learn more about how these businesses operated and how to potentially start one of my own, as did the participants of the Global Rights Connection. I do not think I would have had the courage to switch to this minor if not for the internship, as I am heading into my last year, and this is quite a drastic shift to make. But, through this experience, I learned that I thrive under the introduction of new challenges, and I am excited for the new skills I will learn due to this new minor.
As my internship took place in the summer, a challenging aspect was that many team members went on vacation throughout my time with the organization. Thus, it was a bit difficult to find my footing at specific points, but that encouraged me to develop a sense of autonomy and individual work that I will be able to apply in my future workplaces and even in school. Initially, I was not considering this class for course credit; however, as I switched minors halfway through the summer, I am now thinking of it for recognition and am planning on doing a series of podcast episodes reflecting on my time at Équitas and more deeply pondering on the impact of NGOs such as this on different causes across the world that the participants presented in their individual interviews supervised by Professor Oliver D.
During my internship, I received funding due to the Wendy Patton Keys award. This helped me pay my rent to continue living in the city, study materials for the LSAT as I aspire to go to law school and save some money for my tuition for the upcoming school year. I cannot thank Ms. Wendy Patton Keys, my supervisor, and the AIO office enough for the support and the opportunities given to me throughout this summer. I am incredibly grateful for my time spent with Équitas and will take the skills I learnt with me forth to the other opportunities I will encounter.
