Author: Hannah Purkey 

Location: San Jose, Costa Rica

As college students, we generally intern at some business, hospital, school. I personally have had two internship experiences  since coming to college. They are great opportunities to learn, grow, and truly see if you have an interest in a specific field. Although I experienced all of these things, nothing could have prepared me for my time interning in Costa Rica.

The amazing organization that I got to intern with is called Fundación Mujer (Womens Foundation). This organization itself works to contribute to the social and economic development of people in Costa Rica. They focus on working with refugees from other Central and South American countries. While interning at the foundation, I worked with a woman named Laura. She is in charge of running the education programming and development for the people wanting training. My main jobs were to assist in these education programs, help with the job fair logistics, and simply learn more about the company.

Women talking to different companies the Refugee Job Fair.

To better understand the need for this organization, I want to share a little bit about the story of immigration into Costa Rica. Immigrants make up over 10% of the population of people in Costa Rica. Since the 1960s this percentage has been continually growing. In the eyes of many Central and South Americans, Costa Rica is a secure place to be. Their economy is very stable and their government is kind to people seeking refuge. The highest number of people wanting to come into the country are from Nicaragua and Colombia. Because of the economic situation of Nicaragua, many people are coming to Costa Rica seeking work. It is in CR that they will find a lot of job availability  within domestic work/agriculture, higher wages, universal health care, and higher education standards. It is important to note that Nicaragua is a good country too. People do not want to leave their home country; but sometimes it is needed. To add on, the immigration of Colombians to Costa Rica is mostly due to people seeking refugee from the long standing Colombia Civil War. Some of these Colombians are leaving their country so they can save their own lives. Learning about the amount of refugees that live in Costa Rica has allowed me to appreciate this organization even more.

My personal experience with Fundación Mujer has been educational, eye-opening, and hard. I have learned so much from working with immigrants. I’ve gotten to hear their stories, hopes, triumphs, struggles, and dreams. In this process, I’ve learned so much about the real situations of different countries. This experience has also been eye opening because Costa Rica has a very different view on immigrants. Fundación Mujer believes they can add amazing things to the communities of Costa Rica. They are raised up, supported, and loved by this organization (and other organizations as well.) I have never seen this kind of support system for these types of people. Because of that, my eyes have been open to the resources and support these people really need. On top of all of this, everything I did with this organization was in Spanish. Although I am confident in my Spanish language abilities. I am lost at least 30% of the time. Because of this, interning here was hard, but in a good way. It pushed my language abilities to a level I never knew I could reach. All in all, this internship experience taught me a lot about the life of immigrants and what they need to be successful in a new country.

Me at one of the job fairs.