This was my first internship with a NPO and it is honestly amazing how much everyone gets done and how helpful it is to the people and the community. I learned many different ways we could assist others whether it is in the office or not, long term or short term, all this work is done to make a difference. I also learned how to take responsibility, speak up, and communicate better with others. I also learned a few skills in the office which I thought I wasn¡¯t able to do, but I quickly learned throughout my internship. I learned to manage my time efficiently and how to properly deal with issues I wasn¡¯t familiar with. I also learned that patience, teamwork, and communication is the key to getting things done. Everyone has little jobs that need to be completed and sometimes your work might not seem that ¡®helpful¡¯ but everything all together will eventually be beneficial to others and for the organization as well. I think the values really stood out to me because I had a wrong perception of how NPOs actually function and most importantly what the sisters actually do. It doesn¡¯t matter about your religion, culture, race, gender, wealth because these values apply to every single person and is the right for every human being. There is only one race on the face of the earth, and that¡¯s us. The human race and we need to learn how to not be ignorant and learn how to love and care for others. Many of these values are just common sense which people tend to ignore or are just taught to hate others and we need to change that. I will share these values to others and apply this knowledge to my future work and studies as I attend college this fall and learn to extend my comfort zone in order to reach my humanitarian goals.?
From the internship, I have gotten a feel of what it is like to work in an office. I have come to understand that outreaching is key to the success of many organizations. Although social media is the perfect tool to achieve this, one must find the right way to reach its target audience. I have also learned a lot more about immigration case management and how immigration cases are dealt with.
My internship experiences have strengthen my communication skills speaking on the phone in both English and Spanish. A detainee recently said to me over the phone that I had a kind and effective way of speaking to the detainees, which surprised me but made me feel like I was doing something right. Sometimes, the detainees do not understand what one is telling them the first, second, or third time. This can be frustrating but allows us to improve our communication skills by finding a better way of explaining something. This internship has also helped me become more patient, as things do not always happen or change overnight no matter how much we would like them to.
I have learned that I am more patient than I thought I was. I think this is due to the fact that what I was doing was meaningful to me so I did not mind repeating myself or listening to someone ramble about the same thing over and over again. I have also come to the conclusion that having a passion for what I do will make the not-so-great days worthwhile.
I will definitely apply many of the values learned, more specifically solidarity and the protection of the life and dignity of the human person, to my personal and professional life. As individuals of the same race, the human race, we all deserve to live a life of dignity with access to human necessities while caring for our neighbors.