Posts Tagged ‘internship’
Internship highlights the best of both worlds
“I grew up in a community of immigrants. Sometimes those immigrants were refugees that had to flee for various reasons, so I’ve always been interested in it,” said Madiha, one of our spring 2021 interns.
A daughter of Pakistani immigrants, Madiha knows what it’s like to grow up with two cultures, or, as she would put it, the best of both worlds. Yet she also knows what it’s like to adjust to a new culture, and to feel like an outsider, thanks to her own experience and that of her parents.
“I’ve never been back to Pakistan, which is where my parents are from, but I’ve heard a lot about the differences in culture and the way that they had to navigate that,” she explained. “There are ways that we have adapted to American life, which has been very interesting, but we do also celebrate all the holidays that go with being Pakistani, and we do get super excited and dressed up to do all the fun things there too.”
Although she gets to experience the American tradition of Christmas trees alongside those of Pakistan, her own beliefs and traditions, in addition to her travels, have allowed her to see firsthand how it may feel for a refugee just arriving who feels displaced.
“I think that growing up as a Muslim in a post 9/11 society, I’ve also been able to see how it feels to be an outsider in your own home and when you get out somewhere,” said the twenty-year-old. “Those experiences have helped me interact with people from different backgrounds better, and even have more empathy for what’s happening in their lives.”
Thanks to experiences such as this one, Madiha decided to pursue a degree in international relations with a focus on international migration at Georgetown University in the school of foreign service. When she came back to Memphis to complete her classes online in the midst of the pandemic, she took advantage of the opportunity to work directly with those affected by mass displacement through an internship at World Relief Memphis.
Despite only being a month into her internship, she can already attest to how much she has learned thanks to coworkers such as Vaughan Meiss who have taken the time to explain the refugee resettlement process to her.
“I was just hoping to learn more about the entire process, from the time that a person gets off at the airport all the way through to being deemed as resettled in the community,” Madiha said. “I haven’t known a lot of things about the whole process, so I definitely appreciate the way they’ve been very open to explaining everything.”
After this experience, Madiha feels inspired by the stories she has heard, and she knows that she will have many career options available to her—whether it be in policy, migrant students and education, or even a refugee resettlement agency such as World Relief.
“I’ve loved talking to the people that we work with and hearing what they’ve gone through, seeing their attitude towards the challenges they have faced has been very uplifting,” stated Madiha, who speaks not only English but also Urdu and Hindi. “When we do talk to them, their willingness to work and figure out how they can settle into life is very inspiring.”
With only a few months left, she is hoping to learn as much as possible before returning to Georgetown and continuing her studies. Yet thanks to her time at World Relief Memphis and to her own experiences thus far, Madiha is going back knowing that “there’s a lot more in common when it comes to the source of our traditions than [we] realize, and it all just depends on how you display them that’s different.”
With that in mind, Madiha urges future interns to act with empathy and understanding, as a friend.
“Don’t have the perspective of someone who comes in and saves them, that savior complex,” said Madiha after highlighting the resiliency of refugees. “Be someone who just works with them, and gets to know them and is their friend.”
Already, she has begun to do the same in just her short month with us by listening to different stories and coming alongside our newest neighbors in their road to integration, and we know that she will continue to do so in her future endeavors as well, whether they be in Memphis, Washington, D.C. or elsewhere.
And this summer, we will be welcoming more interns who want to learn and make a difference in the lives of our refugee and immigrant community. If that sounds like you or someone you know, fill out an application by April 6, 2023. Hopefully, we’ll be welcoming you in June alongside our new neighbors.Â
Bailey Clark served as the Communications Coordinator for World Relief Memphis. With a background in journalism and advertising, she is passionate about storytelling and its power to make a difference.Â
Why I serve: the story of Peace
As an immigrant, I know how it is to feel overwhelmed in a new place with no guidance. I have watched my parents come back home frustrated because they did not understand the system, and it was no fun at all. I eventually got used to going to school, relearning how to write, and learning various subjects that I had never even heard of, and, still to this day, I am often confused. During my junior year in high school, I started to get engaged in the community, and I felt happy that I was able to do things that made people’s lives easier. During my senior year, I found an immigrant community and was very happy to be a part of it. They made my life better and helped me understand the college process since I would be the first person to attend a university in the U.S. in my family. I realized that I wanted to give back to that same community, so my interest in service grew, specifically in immigrant communities. I was not confident in my ability to tutor students, so I decided to volunteer each time they needed me to talk about the organization at social justice panels. I started working towards more service, and I applied to the Bonner program at Rhodes College, a program for students that want to be active in the community.
I got accepted, and this was where I first heard of World Relief Memphis. I got a remote internship and began to work immediately. Due to the current pandemic, I am not able do in-person service, but I feel very helpful and happy with my duties. I am responsible for doing research and contacting local organizations that might help us at World Relief Memphis serve our clients better. The research that I do helps with community orientation for our clients and helps establish partnerships with other communities and organization willing to work together with WRM to build a stronger community and home for all.
As a Christian, my faith encourages me to help and serve others the way that God wants us to, and recently, I have started using this faith to guide me as I continue my service and education. This internship has opened my eyes to a new dimension of the church that I do not often consider: service and giving. We are called to give and serve just as Jesus did while He was on earth, and I plan on doing just that in whatever way I can, and to the best of my ability. I am currently a biology major at Rhodes College on the Pre-Med track, hoping to use my education to combat the health disparity issues that immigrants and refugees face in the United States.
While that is currently a long-term goal, I look forward to being physically engaged at World Relief Memphis, and I hope to be a part of new beginnings in the lives of my fellow immigrants.
If you want to get involved in the local immigrant community and help make a difference as well, we are currently looking for interns to join us this summer! Just click here and fill out an application, and we’ll be in touch with you to discuss the next steps.
Peace Abhieyghan is our Spring 2021 intern within the Mobilization department with a passion for giving back to the immigrant community.
Family traditions inspire spring intern, Ibssa
Ibssa may have only been interning with World Relief Memphis for a month now, but he can already see the difference that the experience has had on his life.
Part of an immigrant family himself, Ibssa began his internship hoping to gain “first-hand experience with people in such situations outside of just [his] own family . . . This is a bit more in-depth because you have more types of circumstances to work with.”
At 21-years-old, Ibssa has grown up in Memphis, but his family comes from a long line of “influencers,” as he would say, in Ethiopia. His uncle is a famous musician, and his great-grandfather once traded with the king himself when the monarchy was still in place.Â
With a family history such as his, it’s only natural that Ibssa wants to one day be the best in his field as a clinical psychologist. However, he wants to go one step further by serving other immigrants as well.
“My interest has always been wanting to work with immigrants and different people who come, and [those] who come through trauma related reasons,” said Ibssa, a senior at Christian Brothers University. “A lot of people who do come here come usually do to very difficult events or dangerous situations.”
And at World Relief Memphis, Ibssa is getting his first glimpse of what that could be like by serving in our Integration Services Department, helping contact program participants and assisting them in setting up their new life in the U.S.
“It’s going to be something that will vary each week,” Ibssa explains. “It’s helping them get whatever they need and keeping up with their plans or their goals, and just basically facilitate that process so that they get exactly what they need and where they need to be, and feel motivated in their own right.”
As someone who has learned multiple languages himself, Ibssa understands what it can be like to communicate in a language that’s not your own, and he’s enjoyed helping program participants in any way he can. But, they’ve also influenced him as well.
“I first met a Swahili client this Wednesday, and I just fell in love with the way that language sounded,” said Ibssa, who currently speaks English, Spanish and Oromo. “It was just so beautiful to me, and I was like I have to learn this.”
By adding Swahili to his list, Ibssa will be one step closer to becoming a polyglot, and one step closer to opening his practice that will one day serve other immigrants in the community, just as World Relief does.
Having grown up with Ethiopian and American traditions, Ibssa is no stranger to balancing two cultures, just like many of our refugee families do now. That, in itself, is in part what drew him to World Relief. And as future interns begin arriving this summer, Ibssa urges them to be open minded. If you do, he says, you will have so much to gain.
“You can learn so much from different people. Your eyes will open to just how expansive culture, language, experiences and though processes can be,” Ibssa says. “Just how resilient some people are who come from maybe hard situations. It’s just the fact that people can connect no matter where you’re from.”
Perhaps one day, Ibssa’s name will be known for his work with immigrants, just like his great-grandfather’s and his uncle’s names were celebrated before him. Yet for now, we are thrilled to have him working with us in Memphis this semester as he finishes his undergraduate degree.
“Come and be open-minded,” Ibssa says. “You’ll be so surprised by what you see.”
If you’re looking for a summer internship, we are currently accepting applications! Apply here, and we’ll be in touch with you for any additional information or interviews. If you are not looking to intern but still want to get involved, check out the volunteer opportunities we have available.
Bailey Clark serves as the Communications Coordinator for World Relief Memphis. With a background in journalism and advertising, she is passionate about storytelling and its power to make a difference.Â
Volunteer internship turns into lifelong dream
Kara Spencer’s experience at World Relief was a little different from that of most other interns since her mother, Karen, was the Mobilization Director in the Memphis office. She was in high school when her mom started the job at WRM, and, almost immediately, she started volunteering with special events and spending time in the office. Although their family often discussed global issues, Kara did not know much more about refugees than the typical high schooler.
Over time, Kara’s volunteer work developed into a passion for helping and welcoming refugees. She accepted an internship in 2019 and devoted attention to creating databases, spreadsheets, and improved record-keeping of volunteer and intern history. But her favorite part of the experience was going to airport arrivals, where she loved being able to witness resettled refugees finally arriving in their new home, often being reunited with friends or family members already in the United States. These arrivals underscored the importance of all of the work that World Relief does in the local community. For her, getting to see the emotional arrivals made the more mundane, clerical work she was doing worth the effort.
Since part of her mother’s role was visiting churches to raise awareness for World Relief’s mission, Kara also experienced first-hand the varying reactions to World Relief’s work and purpose. During non-COVID times, her mother explained the mission of World Relief to churches, asking them to come alongside World Relief to work together in the Memphis community. Many people understood how this work fit into the mission of the global church, but others would view refugee and immigration as solely a political issue.Â
Despite seeing such opposing reactions, Kara was and still is encouraged by the curiosity people showed toward World Relief’s mission, and she hopes a seed will be planted that will encourage others to get involved as well—whether that’s learning more about the topic, volunteering or even donating.
Kara’s own reaction to the work of World Relief has inspired her future plans to create a business, hopefully a coffee shop, which employs recently resettled refugees in order to provide avenues for training and soft skills development. Many refugees’ job experience from their home countries does not transfer into the American economy without additional training, or their experience is more informal than the American job market typically requires. Other times, development-related jobs are needed in order to help refugees build a self-sufficient life in the United States.
Through her business, however, Kara would be empowering refugees by providing job training and English practice. Hopefully, she would also be able to raise awareness among other Americans about immigration and diversity in their community. To make this dream a reality, she is pursuing a degree in Business Administration with a minor in entrepreneurship at Harding University. Her vision is to develop a creative and welcoming environment that is more than just a coffee shop, adding significance to her work by finding additional avenues for refugee integration.
Until then, Kara is encouraging fellow college students to get involved because they have the time to dedicate to this important work. By donating their time to these organizations, real change can be created in individual lives and in the community as a whole. The opportunity to learn about such an important topic and area of work is vital as this area will likely only grow in its importance in the coming years under the Biden administration. Volunteering or interning with World Relief is just the beginning of a life-long commitment to learning about refugees and both the challenges and opportunities they face as they transition to life in the United States.
Interested in learning more? Volunteer, intern, or donate to World Relief’s mission here! Â
Sarah Barnett was the former Mobilization Intern for World Relief Memphis and is a senior at Furman University in South Carolina. She majors in Political Science and Spanish and is passionate about influencing where people and policies collide.
Bailey Clark serves as the Communications Coordinator for World Relief Memphis. With a background in journalism and advertising, she is passionate about storytelling and its power to make a difference.
Photo by Emily Frazier
Internships that inspire and transform
Although Noah Rinehart grew up in Memphis, he had never heard of World Relief and didn’t know much about refugees. But once a community service coordinator at Rhodes College recommended it to him based on similar evangelical beliefs, he was intrigued. He ended up interning for six semesters and the summer of 2017, and the resulting experience was less about an academic interest and more about development of his practical life skills and personal growth. He appreciated the chance to broaden his horizons and spend time outside of the Rhodes community, providing perspective and a welcome change from a rigorous and sometimes elitist academic environment. As he learned to navigate government offices and cultural barriers, he also saw the intense challenges faced firsthand by refugees which would cause them to flee their homes. Their challenges do not end with arrival in the United States, but change as they must learn to navigate bureaucratic hurdles, apartment leases, employment contracts, and quite often a language barrier too.
The relationships Noah built with other interns, staff, and program participants were highlights of his experience at World Relief. One of his favorite memories is being in the car with the other summer interns as they drove to an apartment complex where many resettled clients live. When they arrived, an older Syrian man whom they knew through World Relief was riding around the parking lot on a tiny child’s bike! When he recognized them, he just waved with no explanation. They were not even there to visit him, but his playfulness gave them a good laugh and turned an otherwise ordinary day into a memorable one.
Several clients stood out in Noah’s memory as he reflected on his time at World Relief. He remembered a mother and daughter from East Africa with whom he spent a lot of time at their appointments. He was impressed by the mother’s gracefulness and composure. She was never in a hurry for anything, even when they were running very late! While at the DMV one day waiting for an ID card, he struck up a conversation with the daughter, who was getting ready to start ninth grade at a new school. As it ended up, he had attended a school in the same district. He was able to encourage her and tell her about her new school, making her transition to high school a little easier.
As a religious studies major at Rhodes and a Christian, the faith-based aspect of the internship appealed to Noah. He was amazed to learn the sheer number of times the Old Testament admonishes Israel as God’s people to care for the stranger and foreigner among them, and how that command applies to God’s people today, the church, as well. He enjoyed learning more about the church’s role in serving their neighbors, and in many cases their brothers and sisters in Christ. Sometimes it was difficult and discouraging to engage in this space, as he had a front-row seat to seeing churches’ varied reactions toward questions of immigration. On one hand, he was encouraged by those who had chosen to step up and care for their neighbors the way that God calls the church to love them– all of them. But on the other hand, he was also discouraged by those who rejected the call to action and continued to perpetuate hurtful and exclusionary policies toward the foreigner. He came to view loving the stranger as a non-negotiable in the Christian faith through this experience and has taken this view with him in his post-grad endeavors in college ministry.
Being able to work with other Christians operating under similar priorities was one of Noah’s favorite parts about the internship. The staff serves refugees because of Jesus’ commands to love their neighbors, especially the most vulnerable in our communities. The nature of service work is confronting hard situations daily, but Noah was grateful for a supportive office community who helped him think about these challenges in a healthy way, without being consumed by the weight of it all. When he worked here in 2017, the challenge was lowered quotas and declining public support for immigration, but he felt like the office was overall optimistic and flexible to the required changes. He was inspired by the sense of hope he still felt as the general attitude was to trust in the Lord’s provision despite the fact that lowered visa numbers made for a discouraging couple of years. Through this experience, he came to appreciate turning off the news and actually engaging with immigrants in our communities. He found that the relationships built in this way are the ones which are most impactful and mutually transformative.
We are always looking for interns to join our team and learn more about what we do. Noah recommends this internship to anyone looking to grow in their cross cultural abilities and to see the heart of God as they engage with refugees in the Memphis community. Sound like you or someone you know? Check out our internships page to learn more and apply.
Sarah Barnett was the former Mobilization Intern for World Relief Memphis and is a senior at Furman University in South Carolina. She majors in Political Science and Spanish and is passionate about influencing where people and policies collide.
WRM Internship Introduced Diverse Experiences, Skills, and Opportunities
Kristen Morris heard about World Relief during her time at Rhodes College. As a member of their City Link program, she volunteered in the Memphis community during three years of her college career. Her first year was spent in an elementary school, but after exploring her international studies major further, she wanted to shift her volunteer focus to connect more closely with her studies. Through her major, she developed an interest in immigration and wanted to get to know immigrants in her new community. This desire made World Relief a great fit for her. The program put her in touch with World Relief Memphis, and she volunteered here for six semesters, until her graduation in May 2020.
One of the things that stood out to her the most about her experience at World Relief was the collaborative nature of the nonprofit sector, both between organizations and with local churches. One of her classes had discussed the large number of nonprofits in Memphis and their collaboration with one another. She was able to see that collaboration first hand with World Relief’s connections to organizations such as Christ Community Health. She also enjoyed seeing the collaboration between churches of different denominations who all agree that they are called to work with immigrants and welcome them to the Memphis community.
Kristen spent her time at World Relief in the Employment and Casework departments. Through this work she interacted with program participants on a daily basis, through home visits and providing support at appointments. By her final semester of the internship, she had become the intern in charge of the Friends of Trezevant English Program. This program connects participants in the Refugee Elders program with residents of a local retirement community. The goal is fostering community and further developing English language abilities among the Elders. She was surprised and impressed by the willingness of the retirement community residents to give of their time and energy to their foreign-born contemporaries. And these relationships were important to her, too. She got to know the Elders participants through driving them to the class, and she even spent time outside of the internship at the retirement home with those she had met through the class.
Kristen credits World Relief for helping her develop professional skills, such as confidence, creative problem solving, and resilience. On her very first day of the internship, she was surprised at how much freedom she was given in accomplishing her assignments. But once she recovered from this initial surprise, she came to appreciate the freedom and the confidence it gave her. And when she made mistakes? They only helped her learn about herself and the graciousness of her refugee neighbors. Both the technical experience with refugees and the confidence she gained during her first two semesters as an intern set her up for successful adaptation of her skills for a program in Morocco in the summer of 2018. She was grateful for already having cross cultural experience, as she lived with a host family and worked in a very different culture from the one she was raised in. Ultimately, Kristen hopes to use all of this experience in her career, either in peace and development or in conflict resolution. We are grateful for her work with us and excited to see how she uses her skills in the future!
By Sarah Barnett, Mobilization Intern
Learn more about becoming an academic or summer intern with World Relief Memphis like Kristen and Sarah! Visit HERE for more information and to submit your application.Â
Semester Sparked Savannah’s Love for Different Cultures
Savannah Day became interested in refugee resettlement through talking to a high school friend who was involved in a refugee resettlement program in Fayetteville, Arkansas. When she looked for a similar organization near the University of Mississippi, where she was a student, she couldn’t find one. After expanding her search to surrounding cities, she found World Relief Memphis. Her goal was to learn more about social service providers and to be exposed to people from different cultural backgrounds. During her time at World Relief, she learned this and so much more through her work in the Direct Services department, as she engaged with both program participants and World Relief staff. Savannah credits the semester internship she spent at World Relief with sparking her love for those who are different from her and their cultures, even driving her to apply for the Peace Corps after her (virtual) graduation from the University of Mississippi in May 2020.
Savannah’s favorite memory from her time at World Relief is the relationships she built, especially with one particular Muslim family from East Africa. Mohamed, Amina, and their two children had lived in a refugee camp for six years before being invited to enter the United States as refugees. When they arrived, Savannah was at the airport to greet them, and walked alongside them as they adjusted to life in Memphis. She provided transportation and support for both Mohamed and Amina, who was pregnant, at their initial medical and social services appointments after arriving. These included Amina’s prenatal care visits, a topic which Savannah didn’t know much about herself. But she was able to learn alongside Amina, including researching related topics on her own to provide better support. Through accompanying the family to their appointments, Savannah built relationships with every family member as she helped them navigate the systems and culture of the United States. During one of these appointments in the springtime, she had an opportunity to share some of the background and celebrations of Easter after Mohamed asked her a question about the upcoming holiday. That same conversation led to him sharing about the Muslim tradition of Ramadan with her, resulting in mutual respect and better understanding for both of them.
Savannah is grateful for the opportunity she had to both contribute toward and learn from the diversity of Memphis. At the end of the semester, she left with a desire to work in a cross cultural environment and to visit a new place, as she had been inspired by the resilience demonstrated by World Relief program participants. This hope led her to a study abroad experience the following summer in Israel, where she worked with refugees displaced from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She was also able to explore some of the themes she learned about in her internship in an academic context. Her undergraduate senior thesis was on the topic of resettlement policy and recently changed policies’ impact on the work of World Relief and other similar organizations. Her experience at World Relief instilled an interest in this area and gave her impactful experiences and connections from which she could draw in future endeavors.
Before the pandemic hit, she was on track to leave this coming September for a position with the Peace Corps in Morocco. She still hopes that opportunity develops, but has shifted her plans this year to pursue biblical justice for marginalized populations through a Christian fellowship program in New York City. Her time at World Relief changed the way she viewed the church’s role and responsibility to reach out to their vulnerable neighbors, leading her to highly value this trait in a church body. She points the focus back to Jesus as he routinely uplifted people and populations without power in his society. She has had the opportunity to engage with other believers on this topic, even helping to shift some of her family members’ mindsets toward political questions of immigration by discussing these issues through the lens of shared humanity and generosity.
When asked what her advice is to college students considering this internship, she said, “If you have time you should do it, and if not you should make time for it!” We couldn’t agree more!
By Sarah Barnett, Communications Intern
To learn more about our internship programs, read more HERE. Now’s the time to apply for an internship with us!
For the first time…
By Emily Roenigk, intern with World Relief in Baltimore, shares her new perspective:
Last year, I could have counted on one hand the number of times I had thought about the concept of global justice. I had never looked beyond my own privileges to desire restoration for a world that is broken in ways I may never experience. I was ignorant to this simple truth: desiring justice is inherent to a relationship with Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ desires justice.
In November 2012, Belinda Bauman visited my college small group and shared the heartbreaking stories of women and children who are suffering the unthinkable from an unnoticed war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. To this day, this somber statistic remains with me: Every nine out of ten Congolese women are victims of rape.
In our own lives, my friends and I have experienced pain, loss and even devastation; however, we enjoy the Lord’s gracious blessings of overall spiritual and physical health, education and success. Imagine our sense of inadequacy when Belinda asked us to mourn the pain of these Congolese women. We prayed for shalom, a state of existence for humanity wherein nothing is broken, nothing is missing. For the first time, I prayed for the restoration of a people I have never met and whose pain had no impact on my own life.
I knew that I eventually wanted to use my pending Mass Communications major to “help people,” but I realized then that I was the one who needed help. I need help understanding what is really going on in places that aren’t trending on Twitter, how truly believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God means I am intricately connected to the poor, and how conflicts and injustices wherein I once believed I had no responsibility are worthy of my broken heart.
Over the next couple of months, I followed World Relief’s online updates. Finally, after prayer and consideration, I applied for the International Programs summer internship at World Relief, and to my amazement, I was accepted. I am so fortunate to be learning from the talented staff of World Relief about how we can serve the real needs of the poor while empowering them with dignity and honor. It might take me a lifetime to scratch the surface of what justice really looks like spiritually, relationally, economically, agriculturally, politically and so forth. For now, I’ve learned that at the end of the day, our faith must do something in the way that Jesus’ faith did.
In their book When Helping Hurts, Steven Corbett and Brian Fikkert write that it would have been useless for Jesus to merely use words and not actions to declare His Kingdom. We know that Jesus Christ is the Messiah because He not only talks about justice, He does justice. If we are to be the body of Christ, how much more must we?
Emily is a Mass Communications major at Towson University and is interning with World Relief in Baltimore.
DRC photos by Christine Anderson