Sharielle's feeling at home with her internship

The first week of my internship has been great! I was so anxious for weeks to see where Vernon, the internship coordinator and our loveable Capetonian tour guide, placed me. When I was asked in my pre-trip interview where I wanted to be placed, I had no idea. My social interests were all over the place. I did not know how to balance all my interests and properly verbalize how I wanted to advance the Black South African population. As a friend of my mine once said, “I am quite promiscuous when it comes to my human rights interests”. However, Vernon did a wonderful job of placing me at an internship that not only allowed me to work with social cohesion, but I already feel at home with my internship. Absent from Africa Unite, is a sense of hierarchy. There are clear-cut roles for everybody in the office, however titles are not important. I feel that in most of the places that I have worked in America, there is always a fear of the supervisor. At Africa Unite I feel like I am apart of the team. Even though I was only there for two days my supervisors were welcoming of all my comments and suggestions. I did not feel intimidated or scared to contribute or ask questions. From the newest of interns to the most senior of supervisors, we are all partners in helping to improve social cohesion.

What I admire most about my internship is the method they use to help solve the issues of xenophobia towards immigrants and refugees. It seems that most organizations ask for donations for people's physical needs. While monetary donations are very necessary, so are social programs. The programs that are done at Africa Unite promote social cohesion by allowing the youth to take on leadership roles promoting human rights. Other programs also cater to helping young people get the skills that they need to be employable. All these programs are important in helping with the issue of xenophobia towards other African immigrants. One of the reasons why xenophobia is prevalent towards immigrants is because South Africa has an unemployment rate of 40% and some feel that foreign nationals are taking away jobs.

I am hopeful that within the next two months I will learn a lot from my internship about how to make social cohesion possible.