23 | July | 2019 | Institute for Leadership and Service Blog

Trying to summarize my experiences in Washington, DC, so far this summer, despite the short time that I have been here, is a somewhat challenging task. I have learned a great deal of new information, whether it be at work or while experiencing the city. Much of this information I have taken at face value, trusting in the knowledge of those more experienced with DC than myself. But as I have begun to acclimate to DC life and met more and more people, I am beginning to process my early experiences and make my own connections. And in some cases, I am starting to challenge some of my initial assumptions and things I have been told.

My first few weeks at Internews were fairly quiet. I met with Jon, my supervisor, was given a desk space and laptop, was introduced to my coworkers who were in the office that day, and reviewed and started working on some of the projects that had been planned for me. But the rest of the office was preparing for RightsCon. All the members of the Global Technology Team, my team, were attending the annual conference that was being held in Tunisia the following week. The conference focuses on the intersection of human rights and technology with an international scope, and is attended well by representatives from Internews and other organizations like it.

To illuminate, Internews is an international independent media development nonprofit organization. Internews works with journalists, activists, and other organizations around the world. In many of these countries, the government, other actors, or external factors may exert control on what appears in the news or how accessible this information is to the public. Much of Internews is divided into regional teams, serving Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Eurasia, the Middle East and North Africa, and so on. My team, the Global Tech Team, works outside these traditional regional teams to provide more specialized services. We plan and implement projects that provide technical support to organizations in the countries we serve. This is critical because these citizens in these countries are more and more reliant on technology as it becomes more widely accessible.

So, as my Team prepared for their conference, work started a little slow. But, after they returned, we dove right in to work. I have weekly meetings with specific teams, check-ins with my supervisor, and optional meetings with other project groups with my own team or other teams. In the meantime, I work on programming solutions to the projects I have been given, to support finished, ongoing, and potential future projects.

More specifically, I am working to revise and restructure their SAFETAG program documentation, a program that provides resources to perform digital safety audits for media organizations. (These audits include asking questions like: how are we storing our interview notes, collected data, etc? Is it encrypted for our journalists’ safety? Is our website or application vulnerable to attack from bad actors (groups that we report on ranging from criminal organizations to our own government)? In addition to this, I have been working on analyzing internet usage metrics to determine when governments are shutting down, throttling, or censoring the internet in their country. And I have a few more projects I might work on depending on how far along we get during the summer.

But just in working on these projects, I have learned a lot. I have learned how many communities around the world struggle with internet shutdowns or censorship. I have learned that even in developing countries, more and more business is conducted relying on internet connection or smartphone usage. And I have learned that countries that shutdown internet do so knowing it will cost their economy millions of dollars, directly affecting the livelihood of most of their citizens. And yet they continue to do so, to silence activists, to attempt to curb protests or demonstrations, or to keep the rest of the world in the dark about a coup d’état or human rights violations carried out by the government or military.

I have learned that although we all want to help these countries with their difficulties, getting funding for projects is competitive. I have learned that international development can be messy, and that organizations like Internews have to be careful to think about consequences of running programs so that they do not escalate or make situations in certain countries worse.

I would say the most challenging and frustrating aspect of my work is that our organization addresses problems I have never had to deal with, in communities that I have never interacted with. And yet, I find myself spurred on because I am constantly reminded of the freedoms that I enjoy. The promise of the internet, of integration into an ever more connected world, has often been heralded as the Great Equalizer. But still there are obstacles to communication and access to information, and often to those in most need. And I am glad that I get to play a small part in trying to make it more equitable.

Beyond that, I have done the typical DC things. I visited the monuments, some the of the museums, walked past the White House. I have tried new restaurants and new kinds of food, gone to public events like Jazz in the Park and Jazzfest on the wharf, and visited Arlington National Cemetery. I am hoping to catch a few games of professional tennis at the Citi Open this coming weekend, if I can get tickets. One of the most interesting things I learned about DC, and on of the things I like the most, is that there is a great deal of work that is done here that is not done anywhere else. That includes the obvious ones like federal government and related fields like public policy, lobbying, government contract work, and international development, like Internews.

There are some drawbacks to having unique and interesting work, though. It gives one a whole lot to think about when they are trying to decide whether they want to stay in DC after their summer fellowship ends…

“CoCoDA is a lifestyle,” said one of the Latin American employees in the annual organization board meeting, while I was in El Salvador. Later in the meeting, he said, “CoCoDA is a tool,” for the communities we work with. Those statements essentially wrap up how immersive, transformative, and intentional community development in Central America is for the people who devote their careers to the mission of this organization.

As a person who spends much of the day theorizing how to fight for equality, the CoCoDA Board meeting was an oddly unfamiliar environment. Before traveling to Central American communities, I watched the Board of CoCoDA evaluate its position and discuss next steps in lieu of its past. This resonated with me because I was watching a large team of people brainstorm ideas to actually help real people. Part of CoCoDA’s model is to partner with NGO’s in the countries they work with. Even more impactful than seeing CoCoDA work was seeing an NGO in El Salvador operate. I saw innovative composting bins, iguanas that were being raised to supply supplemental protein, a greenhouse to grow vegetables and fruit, and a private news radio station on the same day that I saw the same organization hosting an event where hundreds of men who fought in the Civil War almost 30 years ago would tell their stories. I thought working on the team that is in the U.S. and has the most power made me the biggest helper. This experience complicated that conception because I realized crafting a direct connection with target communities is not only a suggested and time-consuming activity, but it is imperative to help the communities fulfill their dreams and seriously engage in the continual struggle of community development.

I also consider myself deeply involved in my faith and capable of identifying malice in my own intentions. My experiences in Central America have shown me that I am a privileged fellow who has profited from injustice. The United States funded wars and still funds government corruption. This is no secret in El Salvador and Nicaragua. In the U.S., however, our understanding is that Central America is having trouble ousting its systemic corruption. I heard story after story and fact after fact that undermined this fallacy. These truths undermined my foundation of religious understanding and premise for justice. How could I as a person from the U.S. who puts my faith into action excuse myself as someone less than a bystander to these continuing histories and issues?

These experiences move me to feel guilt and pity. Upon reflection, I realize those feelings are meaningless. They turn into a drive to fight for justice. But it’s not just a drive. It’s a commitment. Obstacles surely come. This organization has grinded through the worst of them and expects more in the future. Meanwhile, they also expect to continue working with Central American communities, if CoCoDA is still wanted. If this is the case, the communities decide not only what schools they want to build, water projects they want installed, or how many people they can send to college but also how they want CoCoDA to help. All of this seemed glamorous until I realized successfully completing one project inevitably leads to other problems. For example, building a school does not guarantee having teachers or all the proper materials to teach. Seeing fruit of this organization labor with Central American communities as they develop themselves is a demonstration of struggle and companionship that each experience differently.

The purpose of my internship was to evaluate dysfunctional residential solar panel systems (that a domestic company installed about 10 years ago) in a rural, indigenous community in El Cacao, Nicaragua. When I returned to the U.S. after 16 days in Central America (and 3 days of working with solar panel systems), I researched how components of solar systems work and what causes their failures. I wrote a report and prepared a presentation that CoCoDA will use to explain why their systems are failing and options they can pick from to install a more sustainable plan for their solar systems. This was the easy part because limited human interaction in community development is always the quickest way to complete projects. Thankfully, CoCoDA has spent more than a year collaborating with the community of El Cacao and its elected board to ensure they wanted an intern to evaluate their systems; this is the second project in five years with this community. Therefore, I consider my short-term incomplete service of a couple months complete because it is only one small part in a long-term effort that extends far beyond this one project.