Grassroots Online Work Internship 2020
GlobeMed's Grassroots Onsite Work internship was the event I was looking most forward to in 2020. We normally travel over to Mae Sot, Thailand to work on several projects with our partner, Social Action for Children and Women, for six weeks on the ground. We spent many hours between November through March planning our travel and project details for the coming summer.
(The picture to the right was taken in the first week of March)
Our first virtual meeting after leaving campus!
Unfortunately, COVID-19 kept us off-site and on-line this summer. However, we still did our best to make the most of the summer, holding weekly calls with our SAW contact, Aung Htun Lin, as well as weekly calls with the SAW students. We developed a rhythm in which we created assignments and presentations for them in order to build their confidence English and the skills they may need when they matriculate to university. We also are still working to complete SAW’s annual report for 2019, as well as exploring fundraising options for SAW to help support them during this pandemic.
My favorite memories of our summer GrOW internship are probably the ones coming out of our conversations with the SAW students. They taught us a lot of Burmese and Thai phrases, and were always enthusiastic about our sessions. Their creativity was also really cool to see, like the day they each chose an inspirational figure to present about; one student chose Martin Luther King Jr., while the next on had chosen criticcaly-acclaimed rapper Lil Peep. It was amazing to how even in a pandemic we managed to build connections like we had planned.
