It’s Aug. 22, and I officially have 10 days left of my intensive program support internship with TechGirls. For those of you who didn’t know, I’ve spent the last half of my summer interning with this Department of State initiative to encourage girls ages 15–17 from 8 countries in the Middle East and North Africa to pursue higher education in STEM fields. This program is, to quote one of the girls I’ve found myself interacting with quite often, “AWESOME.”
When I started, I helped a lot with logistics, but now I’ve been guiding the girls along and also photo-documenting the whole experience. All the photos I have taken for TechGirls can be found on our Flickr account, and I’ll even include a few at the bottom. Being able to watch these girls interact with each other is amazing, and I have to say I am surrounded by amazing young women who are working on their own separate projects to enhance their communities back at home. Working with them and seeing them get super passionate about different topics back at home whether it be pollution, kid refugees from Syria or women empowerment, has helped me realize that I am on the right track to doing what I love most—empowering young women.
What’s nifty about this internship is that I am building this relationship with the girls and my co-workers and developing my understandings of what specifics I would like to go into in my field of study AND I am also getting the same mentorship experience that the girls are receiving during this program and more. Yesterday, the girls worked with Hazami Barmuda and her other mentors, Shauna Lead and Uyen Tang, to help develop their community-based projects. Yesterday, I sat in on their training and took notes on what I thought stood out for me as I enter my final year of college and try to implement a few projects of my own.
Not to mention all the networking opportunities I’ve gotten out of this! I’ve met several people who have connected me with other people who have expertise in the topics that I am interested in. And check this out! We were featured in WUSA9 and they used my photo in their article.
Tomorrow we go to New York for the rest of week, where we’ll visit Google, Tumblr and Girls Who Code among many other big time companies in the Big Apple. What a trip!
These girls have inspired me to get on the ball and to start making a difference.
TJ Digital Creative 