Sung hopes his experience this summer will help him with his future career plans. “My interest is more in international health and less on development per se, but this internship was still relevant and gave me valuable experience working with different NGOs--since I am looking at both development and humanitarian assistance, working in both rural communities and in a refugee camp was a unique opportunity to see how diverse Africare is.”

One of Sung’s more interesting projects was working in the Osire Refugee Camp in Namibia. The camp housed refugees from Congo, Burundi and Angola.

“Africare is responsible for logistics work so I helped the field staff organize everything--we had to set up meals, packing, weighing and loading baggage, customs formalities and putting together an outreach campaign for all the returnees, detailing essential information for the repatriation. I was assigned to sit in one of the three convoy buses in order to make sure everything went smoothly during the trip. All the refugee children called me Jet Li and I couldn’t respond in Portuguese so had French-speaking Angolans translate for me--most of my communication with them was in a strange mix of French, Italian and Spanish guesswork.”

Claire Sneed: Conakry, Guinea

Claire, a Slawson NGO Management Fellow, worked for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Guinea this past summer.

She was a Program Development Intern and spent much of her time doing project development and proposal writing. “I was also able to get my hands dirty in some of the other strategic areas where IRC works including child and women protection, camp relocation and the process of transitioning from purely relief to development programming. I carried out focus groups with IRC beneficiaries in camps and towns, particularly adolescent separated children and women survivors of violence.”

Claire also spent time interviewing her colleagues in relation to the project. “I believe that I learned twice as much as they learned from me, though I also came to understand that despite being new to the region and to refugee relief work, that I can offer different perspectives and approaches that help--if indirectly--in building capacity.”

She left Guinea impressed by both the severe poverty and the beautiful scenery. “Despite severe poverty, Guinea is amazingly diverse geographically and topographically. I spent most of my time in the dense jungle of the Forest Region, also called the “Parrot’s Beak,” located between Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire. I was also able to travel to different regions of the country by plane so I got a fantastic feeling for the physical diversity and beauty of Guinea--sweeping savanna in the northeast, deep jungle in the south, high plateau in the north and coastal forests. It really is the magical West Africa I had imagined.”

She was also impressed by the IRC. “They are extremely principled, thoughtful and deliberate in their work and place a high premium on developing local staff capacity. Unlike some other NGOs, they do not simply chase the money. They focus on their core capacities and seek out opportunities where they are sure they can add value.”

“This experience exposed me to the complex and overwhelming challenges of working in the poorest of the poor countries of the world, in areas of prolonged internal conflict with mass human migration, need and deprivation. It complements my prior experience working on development/democratization programs in the Balkans and has reinforced my passion for international development work.”

“On a personal level, I find NGO work professionally and intellectually rich with opportunity. If you are passionate and creative and get fulfillment from interacting with the people who you are seeking to assist, there really is no better work than with NGOs. I hope to apply my internship experience with IRC to future management work in post-conflict and transitional countries, whether in Africa, Asia, Europe or Latin America.”