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 The
Program for Education in Global
Stewardship
Global Internships
Global Interns report on their 2004 summer experiences
 Ten
W&L students spent eight-weeks this summer participating in a
full-time, international internship experience that each sought out and
proposed in relation to his or her global interests.
Tina Shen's internship in China dealt with
Accounting and business Administration. Zach
Manis worked with
the dual effects of slash-and-burn agriculture and elephant-made
disturbances to the Miombo woodlands in the
Niassa Reserve in Northern Mozambique.
Sreya
Banerjee worked as
intern in the Reuters office in Manila, Philippines.
Annie Iadarola spent the summer in the
Dominican Republic where she worked with
IDDI, recognized worldwide for its
innovation and achievement in attacking poverty.
Anne Hungerford assisted
in the soil science-based Soils are Alive organization in Perth,
Australia.
James "Robbie" Clarke and
Noah Stayton interned at
Holy Trinity School, Mar de Plata,
Argentina.
Meredith Donegan and
Nick
Schwartzstein
conducted a valuation of the mangrove forest ecosystem in Maracaipe,
Brazil.
Sam Russell interned with Grayling
Political Strategy in Brussels, Belgium.
Check out their stories
below and also see Global Internships
for application details. Also check out the
2003 Global Internship Reports
Tina Shen (China)
My internship and travel time abroad in China was one
of the most exciting and rewarding experiences I have ever had. The Global
Stewardship Scholarship gave me an opportunity to travel overseas to study
and intern in my major area of study, Accounting and business
Administration.
During my internship, I gave weekly seminars to my
co-workers about the business culture and general educations in the United
States. From my colleagues as well as being in the work environment, I also
learned about China’s accounting/financial processes and their business
culture. It was surprising to see some of the many similarities as well as
the immense differences. I was also astonished over how many people came to
my lectures at the company and over how many of the people living outside
our country knew so much about the U.S. Many of my co-workers and others
I’ve met, confided in me about how much they admired the United States and
wanted an opportunity to visit. They would study English and read about the
American culture in hopes of being able to live the “American Dream”.
In addition to my internship, I was able to travel all
over China, spending the majority of my time in Suzhou where I interned, and
visiting other major cities, such as Shanghai and Beijing. While the
traveling conditions in China were… rough (15 hour train rides with 4 people
per sleeper), it was great meeting new people along the way. While I was
there, I tried to speak with as many natives as I could, not only to
practice my Chinese, but also to learn more about the culture and the people
living there.
Those I worked with were extremely kind and generous,
many of whom offered their homes for me to stay in when they realized I was
living in a hotel. They were eager to show me around the city and help me
with whatever I needed. I was very moved by their hospitality and it was
upsetting having to leave at the end of the term.
This was absolutely the greatest learning experience
anyone could ever have. I discovered things about myself that I never knew
about, in regards to the things I could and could not do. I also realized
how lucky I am to be a citizen of the U.S. Having the chance to travel to
another country and having hands on experience is something I never thought
of being as a luxury. For many other non-U.S. residents this would be seen
as a great honor and I want to thank The Global Stewardship Program for
giving me this privilege.
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Zach Manis (Mozambique)
You know, my parents look at me sometimes and think
that I’m crazy. I wish I was. I just got back from 10 weeks in
Mozambique and South Africa and what have I learned: that the romantic
idea is seldom if ever as romantic in reality, that the exotic once
familiar is bearable and often pleasant, that the stories you have to tell
will last a lifetime.
During
the first two weeks of my trip, I traveled with the Environmental Science
Department at the University of Virginia. My advisor, Bob Swap, is a
professor in this department and arranged for me to meet up with his
undergraduate summer study course in Southern Mozambique. While traveling
with this group, I visited the newly expanded Greater Limpopo Transfrontier
Park. I attended lectures given by park officials and toured several
facilities affiliated with eco- and cultural tourism in the area. I also
was fortunate enough to spend two days in Kruger National Park in South
Africa and meet some of the researchers from WITS University (in
Johannesburg) who were working on the transfrontier initiative.
My internship officially started in the third week of
my trip. I served as a research assistant for Natasha Ribiero, a graduate
student at UVA and a native Mozambican herself. Together, we traveled to
Niassa Reserve in Northern Mozambique where we studied the dual effects of
slash-and-burn agriculture and elephant-made disturbances to the miombo
woodlands in the reserve. Pictured above is our team: Ermalindo (the local
guide), Rogelio (our driver), and Candida (our technician). Every day, we
awoke at 6 AM and headed off from our base camp to the sites we had marked
for research. It was an incredible experience traveling through a rural
Africa that few people have seen, a place where the last big tusk elephants
roam, and an ecosystem preserved by its sheer isolation. All in all, we
spent 5 weeks in the reserve. While I was there, I traveled by what seemed
like every form of transportation: 12 hours on an African bush train, 2
hours on a bicycle taxi across the Mozambique-Malawi border (to renew my
visa), 10 hours sitting alongside 9 Africans in the bed of a Land Rover on a
dilapidated Mozambican dirt road.
It’s an experience I will never forget.
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Sreya Banerjee (Philippines)
Manila,
the capital of the Philippines, is a bustling metropolis of about 10 million
people. That is where I spent 8 weeks in the summer working with Reuters
News Agency in the heart of the financial area of the city. I was primarily
with Reuters Television, working directly under the television news
producer.
I reached Manila post election
period and the opposition being unsatisfied with the vote count process
would take to the streets to protest. I spent many days out on the streets
with the television crew learning how to shoot protests, talking to the
people organizing them, and always staying on guard just in case serious
violence erupted. The most crucial experience at Reuters was learning how to
cover the Filipino hostage crisis in Iraq. In that breaking news situation,
I truly understood the stress and the pressures that come with being a
journalist.
During my 8 weeks at Reuters, I
had the opportunity to directly report for a number of news stories, work on
a feature story, write out news scripts for television and conduct a couple
of crucial interviews, the most interesting being that of Imelda Marcos. I
also travelled a bit and that definitely made my experience in the
Philippines more special. I am immensely grateful to the Global Stewardship
program for having given me this fabulous opportunity to travel to the
Philippines and work with Reuters.
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Annie Iadarola (Domincan
Republic)
The very first thing that crossed my mind when I
got on the plane to Santo Domingo was “Are they really speaking Spanish?”
That was one thing that stayed with me the entire summer, as I tried to
communicate with my classroom Spanish, hand signals, and diagrams. But in
addition to improving my Spanish (or at least making it sound slightly
more Dominican), I learned a lot of unexpected things.
I was at first
surprised to learn that IDDI is recognized worldwide for its innovation and
achievement in attacking poverty. But the more time I spent there, the
clearer it was. They did not have resources or tools that many other similar
organizations have internationally. They often did not even have power in
their office. What they had was a commitment and passion that led them to
push boundaries and try new things.
By working with IDDI,
I had the chance to see first hand a lot of poverty and devastation. I was
extremely impressed with the work that the organization does and the various
ways they have of making sure that their efforts are sustainable, long-run
responses, rather than just a “Band-Aid.” The IDDI employees never ceased to
amaze me with their dedication, compassion, and love for their work. If
nothing else, they showed me that passion can take you a long way when there
doesn’t seem to be much else left.
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Anne Hungerford
(Australia)
This summer, with the assistance of Washington and Lee’s Global
Stewardship Program, I was able to go and work in Perth, Western
Australia. I worked in the School of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at
the University of Western Australia as an assistant in the soil
science-based Soils are Alive organization.
Although I had never worked in soil sciences before, my supervisors gave me
many varied tasks. Some were menial, such as filing and data entry, but
others were more challenging and fun. I wrote a newsletter for their website
on the history of the study of symbiosis, a crucial part of plant-fungi
interactions, and helped edit a book on soil health that is in the process
of being published. I also designed a poster outlining Soils are Alive that
is to be presented at a number of different forums to be held at the end of
this year.
My learning experience was not, however, limited to my official tasks. I
also was challenged ina very different way; in my interactions with my
peers. Although I had live din Australia before, and was seeing old friends,
I was continually meeting new people and reaffirming old friendships. And in
doing so I was also continually presented with new and not always welcome
ways of thought and opinions about my own country, the USA. I had to rethink
my perspective of the US, and defend and argue positions into which I had
previously not put much thought. In some ways, those interactions were the
most challenging part of my trip. They certainly were unanticipated.
I had an excellent eight weeks, and left feeling
determined to return yet again.
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 James "Robbie" Clarke
and Noah Stayton
(Argentina)
Sacrificing my balmy summer months in the US for the
cold wintry winds on the shores of Mar del Plata, Argentina was not the
original idea in choosing my summer plans. Rather, they revolved around
the chance to experience Argentinean culture, its people, and its language
at Holy Trinity School. I became involved with various high school
classes, especially the English lessons. The students even were curious of
what the US is like, and I definitely learned from them about their
country. From my first Argentinean dinner to the nightlife to my daily
routine and to my final exit from the country, I was in the Argentinean
community and felt extremely lucky to have landed there.
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Meredith Donegan and Nick
Schwartzstein (Brazil)
Nick Schwartzstein
and I conducted a valuation of the mangrove forest ecosystem in a small
Brazilian town called Maracaipe. We conducted about 70 interviews entirely
in Portuguese. We discovered that the community depends significantly on
the mangrove forest and its resources, especially as a food source. The
interviews and personal interactions with Maracaipe residents gave me an
intimate view of a radically different, yet exceptional lifestyle. In
addition to forming invaluable friendships, the experience provided
excellent academic opportunities. I discovered my specific environmental
interest in coastal issues. Nick and I plan on publishing a paper with our
supervising professors to summarize our results.
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Sam Russell (Belgium)
My experience in Brussels, Belgium, during the summer
of 2004 was doubtlessly among the most rewarding and educational nine weeks
of my life. Through both the structured "on-the-job" training and the
relationships that I developed with my coworkers and fellow expatriates, I
learned as much as could possibly be learned about European culture in so
short a period of time. The knowledge gained of European politics was so
valuable because of the perspective of those who taught it to me; whether
skeptics or enthusiastic apologists, they were insiders, those whose
work directly affected EU decision making. They were also affected
themselves, and so argued among themselves (and with me) with more passion
than I've seen on this side of the Atlantic. My coworkers, who quickly
became my friends, guided me around Brussels, Europe, and the professional
world itself. I drew close to several of them (hailing from Portugal,
France, Belgium, Rumania, Denmark, and Finland), and learned more from them
than I could have from any textbook. Additionally, my rail pass afforded me
the opportunity to see six countries (Belgium, all of its neighbors, and
Switzerland), which broadened my perspective on both Western European
geography and on the politics and culture in the region. When I boarded the
plane for home on August 7, I knew that I was leaving behind a continent of
thousand-year-old culture and tremendous political complexity. I was also
saying "goodbye" to good friends and a truly enriching summer.
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