Internship Diaries

It is day two of my internship with Non-Violence International in the heart of the nation's capital. Today a fellow intern Olivia and I attended the "Peace and Social Issues" class at a local high school, which I later learnt and to my astonishment, is the best public school in the state, and so I gather that public schools in D.C. are not at par with schools from the rest of the nation. I was hoping that the class would be oriented more towards peace, but I was dissapointed that the guest speaker Brian McTigue,Esquire was addressing pension law. Nonetheless, I am glad I got to go because Dr.Colman McCarthy, the professor conducting the class opened the floor and allowed me to speak about my work as Student Activist Corp for AI. Students questioned me about my stance on the Death Penalty and amidst their comments I managed to put my justification across, "I am against the Death Penalty because it is harsh on the innocent and is an easy way out for those guilty of murder."

It wasn't after the class ended that I learnt of McCarthy's interesting background. He is a close acquaintance of Jack Healey,the former director of AI and was delighted to learn of my internship with his Human Rights Action Center(I am pursuing a dual internship this summer). He invited me to speak to his group at the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars this summer! Wow I would be speaking to a group of highly informed college students about human rights and my research on the coltan conflict in the DRC, something I didn't think I would be sucked into doing. But in all honesty I am looking forward to it. I hope this makes Dr. MacKinnon proud of his global studies graduate.




Yesterday, I was oriented into the organization and all their wonderful projects. Non-violence is not small by any means, their branches are far reached and there is plenty to do here. They could use my help with the Iran program translating movies, making PSA's, researching the news and updating websites. Sam Sedaei, a full time employee of the organization is a phenomenal advocate and has surpassed my impressions of an Iranian man. He keeps a blog with the Huffington Post, has translated an entire non-violence curriculum and websites into Farsi. He is exactly as he describes himself,more American than Iranian. Their Youth Advocate Program International is another of program that interests me.

With so much to do, I believe I will be putting in more than the 20-hours they had me scheduled to work. For now I am headed to finish my research paper that is due tomorrow. Stay tuned for more entries of my Internship Diaries.