This week I wrapped up my four-month long internship in the Communications Department at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund, Sweden.
I started the internship with an open mind, excited for my first experience at a human rights institute and willing to learn from every experience along the way. The past few months at the Institute have been incredible. I was able to help with preparations for the Swedish Human Rights Film Festival in March, attend seminars with speakers such as Olof Skoog and Richard Falk, learn and write about the work RWI does around the world, and even present on my previous experiences interning on Capitol Hill during a lunch seminar at the office.
I remember when I started, my manager, Gabriel Stein, introduced me to a new project he wanted to start – the staff profile series, where we provide a closer look into the lives and motivations of members of the RWI staff. When he was explaining to me why he wanted to do these profiles, he taught me how to ask questions to highlight these people in a way that goes beyond what you can find on their CV. The people who work at RWI are bright, motivated, highly-accomplished individuals. They could have chosen any career path, but why did they want to choose to work in human rights? For some, it was personal – wanting to give opportunities to others that they themselves were deprived of at some point in their life. Some others were initially more drawn toward professions where they would earn large salaries but later realized working in human rights would provide them with a more meaningful career.
I delighted in the opportunities to find the right questions to ask that would allow staff members to open up about the individuals and experiences that led them to where they are today working at the Institute.
One of my most memorable interviews during my time here was with Chris Sidoti, one of the UN experts working on the investigation in Myanmar which could designate the crisis a genocide in its final report to be issued this fall. He joined RWI at the Swedish Human Rights Film Festival in March for a Q&A following the film The Venerable W about a Buddhist monk in Myanmar responsible for inciting ethnic hatred toward the Rohingya population.
Ahead of his visit to Lund, I interviewed him about the extent of the violence in Myanmar and what the investigation would need to find to label the situation genocide. It almost seemed surreal as an intern to be interviewing someone responsible for leading the investigation of one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world today. I understood that there were restrictions on what he was able to say since the UN is still working on reaching their final conclusions, so I tried to come up with questions to ask him that would somehow reveal something that would shed new light on the situation.
I am grateful for the opportunities I have been given at RWI to meet extraordinary individuals from around the world and share their stories. My work here has taught me how to better connect with people from different cultures, learn about how a human rights organization operates globally, and ask important questions that reveal something that has not been said before.
These are skills I will surely carry with me in the future as I return home to Washington D.C. next week and will be valuable for whichever type of career I pursue.