As a recipient of the Susan Casey Brown Fund for 缅北强奸, 缅北强奸 International Experience Awards, I would like to offer my sincerest appreciation for this award, and the support it provided me with, over the course of my internship. Given that my internship was unpaid, this award offered a sense of financial security that I would have otherwise not been afforded. I am very thankful that I was able to partake in such an opportunity, and extremely grateful for having been given this award.
This summer, I partook in a remote, three-month long internship with the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) in Geneva, Switzerland. I chose to participate in this international activity, as I am half Swiss, and was interested in gaining exposure to non-governmental work in Geneva. I came across an opportunity to intern for the communications team at ISHR in February and applied immediately 鈥� viewing it as the perfect opportunity to develop my understanding of NGOs, as well as my, more technical, communication skills.
Founded in 1984, ISHR is an organization that advocates for human rights defenders around the world. They achieve their mission by providing human rights defenders with legal training, educational tools, and strategic advice. ISHR also works to strengthen international human rights systems, working with the UN and other international organizations to create mechanisms and frameworks that ensure the protection of human rights defenders.
As a student pursuing a degree in International Development with a minor in Communications, the opportunity to work on the communications team of a human rights organization struck me as the perfect opportunity to gain a better understanding of the fields I hope one day to work in. Over the course of three months, I developed campaign messaging, wrote articles, edited video interviews of human rights defenders, worked on advocacy projects, created infographics, and produced graphic material for promotional purposes.
Coming into this internship, my learning objectives had been twofold. One main objective was for me to gain a better understanding of non-governmental work, and the type of advocacy work that human rights defenders do. The other objective was for me to strengthen my visual communication skills, particularly, my graphic design and video editing skills. I believe I met both these objectives, through working closely with both the campaigns and communications team, and being given a great deal of independence with the work that I was doing. My teammates trusted me fully to carry out the tasks assigned to me, allowing me to delve deep into the projects I worked on, and gain an inside look into how advocacy work is drafted, conducted, and promoted.
One highlight of my internship was being able to edit video interviews of human rights defenders. To be able to hear their stories and to be in charge of crafting these interviews in a way that stayed true to the stories they were telling, was an invaluable experience. One interview that I worked on, with the Danish-Bahraini human rights defender Maryam Al-Khawaja, taught me the ways in which human rights defenders can appeal to the UN to help produce international pressure to condemn human rights abuses. This interview also taught me the ways in which international systems continue to fall short, with Maryam drawing attention to her father, a human rights defender who remains in prison to this day. Being able to learn about these international systems, not from a textbook, but rather through the stories of individuals who had direct experiences with them, was something that really stuck with me.
Having now completed this internship, I definitely hope to continue to work in the realm of non-governmental work for the foreseeable future. The intersection between visual media and advocacy work is of particular interest to me and is something I hope to explore in the coming years.
Thank you again for this generous award, Mr. Brown. I am extremely grateful for the experience I had this summer, and the support this award lent me during my internship.
