GenHR’s Summer 2020 Interns Reflect on their Experience

By Shawna Richardson, Charlotte Brown, and Hana Khan & Foreword by Emma Anglade-Ravez

This blog post is a reflection of our three summer interns, Shawna, Charlotte and Hana, on their work at GenHR. They talk about the research they did for the Pandemic Curriculum and how they adapted to remote work. Their work has been so precious to us and rewarding as our Pandemic Curriculum is now up and running on our website!  

http://www.generationhumanrights.org/unmasking-pandemic-curriculum

INTRODUCTION

Generation Human Rights aims to empower and engage youth locally and globally to chart a world free from human rights abuse and genocide through the development of multidisciplinary curricula and custom education programs. Especially now, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen disparities in countries around the world to ensure basic human rights, like healthcare and food and water, so citizens can stay safe, healthy and nourished during country-wide lockdowns and stay-at-home orders. The summer interns have been working on a host of new projects that have arisen since the start of the pandemic to meet the new needs of youth globally. As everything seemed to come to a halt, our work continued on and we needed to adapt the summer internship program to a new digital and remote platform with the interns being spread out from California to the UK. Although we were miles apart, our weekly Zoom meetings helped us connect with each other and review the work we all completed the week before to contribute to the larger projects. The biggest project we worked on this summer was the new Pandemic Curriculum which will be a tool used in classrooms globally examining the pandemic through a human rights lens and calling on youth to be changemakers in their communities during these difficult times and throughout their lives. The interns reflected on what each experienced and enjoyed while working on these new projects from their remote locations!

Shawna

Throughout my time working for GenHR this summer, I have been able to continue developing my research and writing skills with the support of a great team even while at home. Our weekly team Zoom check-ins, while not the same as in person meetings, gave us the opportunity to make sure we were all on the same page and share some of the highlights from the work we were doing that week. As someone who is beginning a Masters degree in human rights education, this internship gave me my first taste of what the field of human rights education is all about and the amazing impact that this work can have on improving individual lives and societies around the world. This internship reaffirmed my passion for human rights education and made me excited for what is to come in my future career path!

Charlotte

My time with GenHR began in May when I began working with high school interns on the initiative, QuaranTEENing. I then started working with Hana and Shawna, where we had the chance to enhance our research and online communication skills. I started researching specific countries and was able to understand each country's response to COVID-19. All our work led up to seeing the formation of the human rights pandemic curriculum. As a current undergraduate student focused on human rights, this opportunity reinforced a human rights education's benefits. Interning at GenHR has helped me grow academically and personally, expanding my interest in human rights. Our team met through zoom meetings, which managed to bring many different time zones together each week. I am grateful for the time I had at GenHR and all the valuable lessons and skills I gained from this internship and my team. My time at GenHR has prepared me to continue pursuing my passions, and I am excited to see what comes next!

Hana

I began my internship at GenHR in May and spent my summer carrying out remote work in a variety of areas. I began developing the existing human rights curriculum as I engaged with the lessons and creatively thought of ways to implement the Sustainable Development Goals to replace the existing Millennium Development Goals detailed in the lessons. Through regular staff meetings via Zoom I was able to check in with work updates and any questions I had were answered. As my internship progressed I was informed of the new curriculum GenHR began to develop. Working on this greatly improved my research skills as I was able to focus on particular country responses to Covid-19 and share my findings with staff members and the other interns. Reflecting on my summer internship I am grateful for the opportunities that were made available to me over the summer by GenHR and I value the supportive team I worked with.