These internships separated into three categories, Southern California, National and International. Each is selected according the stated goals of the CGS major.
Students doing unpaid Internships in the summer or during the academic year may be granted funds to help defray expenses and for other purposes. Please contact the Career Services Office for more information and application deadlines.
Students may also check with Pitzer Community Engagement Center office for more local internships.
Harper Miller Rubin, IIS alum class of 2013, compiled the list. If you want to add internships to the list, contact Lako Tongun, [email protected].
Southern California Internships
Code Pink
Location: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C.
[email protected]
https://www.codepink4peace.org/
Organization description:
CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end U.S. funded wars and occupations, to challenge militarism globally, and to redirect our resources into health care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities.
Campaigns:
Arms are for Hugging
Close Guantanamo
Ground the Drones
Bring out War $$ Home
AHAVA: Stolen Beauty
Arrest War Criminals
Center For Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ)
https://www.ccaej.org
(951)360-8451
7701 Mission Blvd.
Jurupa Valley, CA 92509
Organization Description:
The mission of the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice is to bring people together to improve our social and natural environment. We do this by developing indigenous leadership, community organizing through strategic campaigns and by building a base of community power in order to create safer, healthier, toxic free places to live, work, learn and play. The Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ) is a progressive, base-building, non-profit organization whose focus is to bring communities of people together to find opportunities for cooperation, agreement, and problem solving in improving their social and natural environment.
Using the lens of environmental health to achieve social change, we work within communities to develop and sustain democratically based participatory decision-making that promotes involvement of a diverse segment of the community in ways that empower the community.
We accomplish this by facilitating and providing assistance in the following areas:
– Skills training and leadership development that enhances each individual’s talents and expertise to its fullest potential in order to expand the voice and influence of community-based groups.
– Research, information, and public education on issues impacting local communities
– Community organizing and strategic planning to address these issues.
Advocacy for changes in public policy that are community- driven, protective, and enhance local resources.
Issues that CCAEJ is committed to challenging:
– Exploitation of workers as well as the environment
– Oppression of people on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, and class
– Concentrated power in the hands of scientists, engineers, and the commercial and military interests that support them
Warehouse Workers United
Contact: Sheheryar Kaoosji at [email protected]
601 S. Milliken Ave, Suite A Ontario, California 91761
Warehouse Workers United is an organization committed to improving the quality of life and jobs for warehouse workers in Southern California’s Inland Empire.
Warehouse Workers United was started in 2009 and immediately began working closely with community groups in San Bernardino and Riverside counties in Southern California including CLUE-CA and CCAEJ as well as national coalitions and groups like the UCLA Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program, Council on Occupational Health and Safety, the Food Chain Workers Alliance, and National Day Labor Organizing Network. WWU is supported by Change to Win, a labor coalition of 5 million workers in North America.
The Labor Community Strategy Center
https://www.thestrategycenter.org/
The Strategy Center, 3780 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1200, Los Angeles, CA 90010
213-387-2800
The Strategy Center is a Think Tank/Act Tank for regional, national and international movement building, founded in 1989 and based in the 10 million-person world city of Los Angeles. Our campaigns, projects, and publications are rooted in working class communities of color, and address the totality of urban life with a particular focus on civil rights, environmental justice, public health, global warming, and the criminal legal system. We build consciousness, leadership, and organization among those who face discrimination and societal attack–people of color, women, immigrants, workers, LGBT people, youth, all of whom comprise our membership. Linking mass struggles to the need for radical, structural change, we develop campaigns and demands that help build a revitalized world united front that can stop the rising tides of war, racism and imperialism, the ecological crisis and the growing police state. Our work often challenges both major political parties and takes on the organized Right. We fight to win.
Homeboy Industries
https://homeboyindustries.org/
130 W. Bruno St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(323) 526-1254
[email protected]
Homeboy Industries Services and Programs:
Tattoo Removal, Employment Services, Case Management, Legal Services, Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Domestic Violence Services, Curriculum and Education, Solar Panel Installation Training and Certification Program
Homeboy Industries Social Enterprises:
Homegirl Café and Catering, Homeboy Farmers Markets, Homeboy and Homegirl Merchandise, Homeboy Bakery, Homeboy Grocery, Homeboy Silkscreen and Embroidery
Volunteer Options: Math Tutors, GED Tutoring, Homeboy Heals Programs, Tattoo Removal Volunteers
Youth Justice Coalition
https://www.youth4justice.org/
Chuco’s Justice Center, 1137 E. Redondo Blvd., Inglewood CA 90302
PO Box 73688, Los Angeles CA 90003
(323) 235-4243
[email protected]
The Youth Justice Coalition (YJC) is working to build a youth, family and prisoner-led movement to challenge race, gender and class inequality in Los Angeles County’s and California’s juvenile injustice systems. Our goal is to dismantle policies and institutions that have ensured the massive lock-up of people of color; widespread police violence, corruption and distrust between police and communities; disregard of youth and communities’ Constitutional and human rights; the construction of a vicious school-to-jail track; and the build-up of the world’s largest network of juvenile halls, jails and prisons. The YJC uses direct action organizing, advocacy, political education, transformative justice and activist arts to mobilize system-involved youth, families and our allies – both in the community and within lock-ups – to bring about change.
Pomona Economic Opportunities Center
Location: Pomona, Rancho Cucamonga
Contact CEC
Phone: (909) 607-8183
Organization Description:
The Pomona Economic Opportunity-Day Labor Center provides a safe, legal site for day laborers to gather and act collectively to ensure safe, fair working conditions for its members. Day Laborers are available to perform a variety of tasks from raking leaves and building fences, to laying tile or building walls. Workers are skilled and responsible. Staff is on hand to translate if necessary and to assist in salary negotiation and work arrangements. The Pomona Day Labor Center encourages you to support members of the Center and discourage those who loiter on the corner.
Internship Description:
Interns teach ESL in Pomona or Rancho Cucamonga or work in the community garden in Pomona.
Huerta del Valle Farm
Location: Pitzer in Ontario
Community Garden
Ontario Wheelhouse
Location: Ontario, at Huerta del Valle Farm
Contact: Max Estela: [email protected]
Fix and distribute bicycles to community members
Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere
Location: Los Angeles
https://awarela.org/
AWARE is all-volunteer alliance of white anti-racist people working together to challenge racism and work for racial justice in transformative alliance with people of color. We take collective action to build white anti-racist and multiracial alliances to contribute to a broad-based, social justice movement.
Volunteers are involved in various working groups and monthly meetings.
Sherman Indian High School
Location: Riverside
Contact: [email protected]
Teach a variety of classes in high school for local Native American youth. Host self-esteem classes for young women.
Jewish Voices for Peace
https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
Location: Los Angeles, chapters around United States
Los Angeles contact: [email protected]
Jewish Voice for Peace members are inspired by Jewish tradition to work together for peace, social justice, equality, human rights, respect for international law, and a U.S. foreign policy based on these ideals.
JVP opposes anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim, and anti-Arab bigotry and oppression. JVP seeks an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem; security and self-determination for Israelis and Palestinians; a just solution for Palestinian refugees based on principles established in international law; an end to violence against civilians; and peace and justice for all peoples of the Middle East.
Jewish Voice for Peace is a diverse, democratic organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on human rights and international law. We are looking for interns with administrative, writing, online, video and organizing skills.
National Internships
Longhouse Internship
Location: Rensselaerville, New York
The LongHouse Internship Program is a food media laboratory designed to give 6 participants an intense immersion in every aspect of food stories from writing and photography to videography and broadcast media, as well as hands-on experience in farming, cooking, building and more. Under the tutelage of of some of the leaders in the field, interns create all the content for LongHouse Food Revival. This includes writing blog posts, social media, press releases and magazine content, gathering oral histories, creating short documentary videos, producing slide shows, researching the written and spoken word as well as fine arts and interfacing with presenters to create a script. Each intern is responsible for an individual scholarly research project and attendant field work using a specific medium (writing, film, oral history, visual art, design, etc). The group works together with mentors to edit the materials into a single multimedia presentation and a printed magazine. In addition, daily team activities include bio-dynamic farming, animal-tending, food preservation and cooking.
Undergraduates as well as graduate students and mid-career professionals are encouraged to apply. Selection is based on existing expertise and a well-established appetite for learning and well-stated career goals. Our mission is to prepare participants for careers in food media, activism, food justice, academia and writing.
Code Pink
Location: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C.
[email protected]
https://www.codepink4peace.org/
CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end U.S. funded wars and occupations, to challenge militarism globally, and to redirect our resources into health care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities.
Campaigns:
Arms are for Hugging
Close Guantanamo
Ground the Drones
Bring out War $$ Home
AHAVA: Stolen Beauty
Arrest War Criminals
Incite! Women of Color Against Violence
Locations: Los Angeles, CA; Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti, MI; Bay Area, CA; Binghamton, NY; Denver, CO; Fort Collins, CO; New Orleans, LA; New York, NY; Washington, D.C.
https://www.incite-national.org
INCITE! is a national activist organization of radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and our communities through direct action, critical dialogue, and grassroots organizing.
Generation Five
Location: Oakland
[email protected]
https://www.generationfive.org
The mission of generationFIVE is to end the sexual abuse of children within five generations.
We work to interrupt and mend the intergenerational impact of child sexual abuse on individuals, families, and communities. Through survivor and bystander leadership development, community prevention and intervention, public action, and cross-movement building, generationFIVE works to interrupt and mend the intergenerational impact of child sexual abuse on individuals, families, and communities.
We integrate child sexual abuse prevention into social movements and community organizing targeting family violence, racial and economic oppression, and gender, age-based and cultural discrimination, rather than continuing to perpetuate the isolation of the issue. It is our belief that meaningful community response is the key to effective prevention.
Food First
Location: Oakland
(510) 654-4400
https://www.foodfirst.org/
Our mission is to end the injustices that cause hunger, poverty and environmental degradation throughout the world. We believe a world free of hunger is possible if farmers and communities take back control of the food systems presently dominated by transnational agri-foods industries. We carry out research, analysis, advocacy and education with communities and social movements for informed citizen engagement with the institutions and policies that control production, distribution and access to food. Our work both informs and amplifies the voices of social movements fighting for food justice and food sovereignty. We are committed to dismantling racism in the food system and believe in people’s right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems—at home and abroad.
Catalyst Project
https://collectiveliberation.org/
Location: San Francisco
[email protected]
We work to create a world where all people are free from oppression and exploitation. Catalyst Project works in majority white communities with the goal of deepening anti-racist commitment and building multiracial movements for liberation. We create spaces for organizers to develop and share analysis, visions and strategies to build movements for racial, economic, gender and ecological justice. Catalyst programs prioritize leadership development, supporting grassroots organizations and multiracial alliance building.
Causa Justa/ Just Cause
https://www.cjjc.org/
Location: San Francisco, Oakland
Just Cause builds grassroots power and leadership to create strong, equitable communities.
Born from a visionary merger between a Black organization and a Latino immigrant organization, we build bridges of solidarity between working class communities of color. Through rights-based services, policy campaigns, civic engagement, and direct action, we improve conditions in our neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area, and contribute to building the larger multi-racial, multi-generational movement needed for fundamental change.
Audre Lorde Project
www.alp.org
Location: New York
The Audre Lorde Project is a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non-Conforming People of Color community organizing center, focusing on the New York City area. Through mobilization, education and capacity-building, we work for community wellness and progressive social and economic justice. Committed to struggling across differences, we seek to responsibly reflect, represent and serve our various communities.
International Forum on Globalization
Location: San Francisco
Contact: [email protected]
The IFG is a North-South research and educational institution composed of leading activists, economists, scholars, and researchers providing analysis and critiques on the cultural, social, political, and environmental impacts of economic globalization. Formed in 1994, the IFG came together out of shared concern that the world’s corporate and political leadership was rapidly restructuring global politics and economics on a level that was as historically significant as any period since the Industrial Revolution. Yet there was almost no discussion or even recognition of this new “free market,” or “neoliberal” model, or of the institutions and agreements enforcing this system—the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other such bureaucracies. In response, the IFG began to stimulate new thinking, joint activity, and public education about this rapidly rising economic paradigm.
Pachamama Alliance
https://www.pachamama.org/
Location: San Francisco
Contact: [email protected]
The Pachamama Alliance, empowered by our partnership with indigenous people, is dedicated to bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on this planet.
Our unique contribution is to generate, and engage people everywhere in, transformational conversations and experiences consistent with this purpose. We weave together indigenous and modern worldviews such that human beings are in touch with their dignity and are ennobled by the magnificence, mystery and opportunity of what is possible for humanity at this time.
MADRE
Home
Location: New York
Summer of Solutions
https://grandaspirations.org/
Locations:
Arleta, CA
Chicago, IL
Hartford, CT
Iowa City, IA
Ithaca, NY
Johnson City, TN
Lexington, KY
Little Rock, AR
Middleton, WI
Oakland, CA
Raleigh, NC
Reno, NV
Southern West Virginia
Twin Cities, MN
Washington, DC
During the Summer of Solutions, you will receive training in community organizing and sustainable community development techniques. You will use these skills to demonstrate the promise of energy efficiency, community-based energy, green industry, local food production, and/or smart design as described in the locations you choose. Beyond the concrete skills you learn, Summer of Solutions will be a really fun community-based experience. It is a great chance to grow with, learn from, and work with other incredible young people and community leaders who are building a better future. Most programs run through the months of June, July, and August though there is variation location to location. Check out the programs page for more information on individual programs.
You can participate in the Summer of Solutions at two different levels, both of which use the online application:
1. Full-time participant – If Summer of Solutions will be your focus for the summer, and you’ll work intensively day-to-day with a team of other leaders. Full-time participants are accountable for regular participation and mutually-defined responsibilities and leadership roles. You’ll live near other participants and participate in mentorship, project management, and team innovation. We will work with those who apply as full-time participants to figure out how to make the summer adequately rewarding for you.
2. Part-time participant – If you’ll also have another commitment that will take up a lot of your time this summer- either you’ll only be in the program location for part of the summer or you’ll only be available on a part-time basis throughout the summer.
Generation Waking up
Based in Oakland, CA
Generation Waking Up is a global campaign to ignite a generation of young people to bring forth a thriving, just, sustainable world.
Our campaign operates through three interwoven programs – WakeUp, Thrive, and Synergize.
1. Through WakeUp, we use arts, media, and interactive workshops that support young people in seeing who we are as a generation, the global challenges and opportunities before us, and our unique role in shifting the course of humanity.
2. Through Thrive, we offer trainings to empower “awakened” young people with knowledge, skills, capacities, and support for creating lasting social change while deepening their own personal transformation.
3. Through Synergize, we organize local “Hubs” on campuses and in communities, larger-scale movement gatherings, and online collaboration networks to connect young people and youth initiatives across issues to create whole-systems change.
Co-Fed
Home 3 v4
[email protected]
2150 Allston Way, Suite 400
Berkeley, CA 94704
Locations across the United States.
The Shakedown Café is a member of Co-Fed, Paid Summer Research Fellowship available in Berkeley, CA
Our Regional Organizers support students across North America with training and tools, and connect them with peers, mentors, and others allies in a solidarity network. CoFED has worked with over 40 student teams starting or operating cooperative, sustainable food ventures on their campus. In addition to supporting this ongoing work on university campuses, we’re conducting a pilot program to support healthy food access and enterprise development training at community colleges.
Human Rights Watch—Los Angeles
https://www.hrw.org/los-angeles
fellowship application: https://www.hrw.org/about/fellowships
11500 W. Olympic Blvd., Suite 540
Los Angeles, CA 90064 USA
310-477-5540
Based in New York, Locations in LA, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington DC and international
Human Rights Watch is a nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization made up of more than 280 staff members around the globe. Its staff consists of human rights professionals including country experts, lawyers, journalists, and academics of diverse backgrounds and nationalities.
Established in 1978, Human Rights Watch is known for its accurate fact-finding, impartial reporting, effective use of media, and targeted advocacy, often in partnership with local human rights groups. Each year, Human Rights Watch publishes more than 100 reports and briefings on human rights conditions in some 90 countries, generating extensive coverage in local and international media.
With the leverage this brings, Human Rights Watch meets with governments, the United Nations, regional groups like the African Union and the European Union, financial institutions, and corporations to press for changes in policy and practice that promote human rights and justice around the world.
Little Maroons Day Care Cooperative
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Contact: https://www.littlemaroonscommunity.com/contact/
https://www.littlemaroonscommunity.com/
Little Maroons is a parent-led childcare cooperative operating from a child-led, African-centered curriculum rooted in indigenous wisdom. In the spirit of the Maroon communities, the children and their families are encouraged to embody the principles of independence, self-determination and cooperation. Maroon communities (also known as Quilombos and Palenques) developed almost everywhere that enslaved Africans were brought in the Americas and the Caribbean. They were independent communities created by runaway Africans that had rebelled and / or escaped from their captors frequently within the first generation of their arrival from Africa. There, they often preserved their African languages and many of their cultural traditions. We will encourage and embody those principles as well as non-gender conformity, self-love, a love for African people and a love for learning. We believe that educating our children is a revolutionary act that we openly embrace.
Mamas of Color Rising
Location: Houston, Texas
[email protected]
https://mamasofcolorrising.wordpress.com
Mamas of Color Rising is a collective of working class and poor mothers of color based in and around Austin, TX. We are interested in organizing ourselves and other women/mamas of color around issues with accessing needs like food, housing, education and safety, finding out together what our larger ideal community looks like and building it together.
Project South
Location: Atlanta, GA
404.622.0602
https://www.projectsouth.org/
Founded in 1986, Project South has developed thousands of leaders within communities directly affected by racism and economic injustice in order to build social movements to eliminate poverty.
For over 25 years, we have used popular education techniques as an organizing tool to build a base of skilled leadership that directly challenges racism and poverty at the roots.
Project South builds communications capacities among low-income families of color and provides multiple mechanisms to shift public dialogue on local, regional, and national levels. Coupled with long-term leadership development programs, our people-centered communication tools, including our organizational newsletter, a bimonthly youth-led radio show, and our monthly membership sessions and debate society increase public education through civic engagement. The Project South newsletter As the South Goes reaches 3,000 members and contacts twice a year with education, updates, and consciousness-raising political analysis on poverty, race, global struggles, and youth realities.
Project Reach
Location: Chinatown, New York
Project Reach addresses issues that schools and community organizations avoid or are ill-equipped to handle, including intergroup tensions (racism, sexism, homophobia, immigrant discrimination, ability bias, etc.) and the absence of prevention education strategies. Major services provided to develop intervention skills and cultural competency include:
– workshops and trainings
– teacher and staff development
– technical assistance
– train-the-trainer series for young people and adults.
Project Reach provides crisis counseling and advocacy for young people others would not, including marginalized youth communities such as:
– youth of color
– young women
– immigrant/undocumented youth
– lesbian, gay, bisexual, Two Spirit, transgender, questioning, and intersex youth
– youth with mental and physical differences
– hiv+ youth and young people living with AIDS
– youth in foster care and homeless youth
– court-involved or incarcerated youth
Right to the City
Location: New York
[email protected]
https://www.righttothecity.org
Right to the City (RTTC) emerged in 2007 as a unified response to gentrification and a call to halt the displacement of low-income people, people of color, marginalized LGBTQ communities, and youths of color from their historic urban neighborhoods. We are a national alliance of racial, economic and environmental justice organizations.
Sista II Sista
Location: New York
Sista II Sista is a Brooklyn-wide community-based organization located in Bushwick. We area collective of working-class young and adult Black and Latina Women building together to model a society based on liberation and love. Our organization is dedicated to working with young women to develop personal, spiritual and collective power. We are committed to fighting for justice and creating alternatives to the systems we live in by making social, cultural and political change.
Young Women United
Location: Albuquerque, NM
https://www.youngwomenunited.org/
Young Women United is a community organizing project by and for young women of color, ages 13 to 35 in Albuquerque, NM. We believe that change should come from those most impacted by an issue.
YWU organizes with our members, leaders, and activists to defend reproductive rights and build reproductive justice, improve the access young people have to quality health care, build educational equality for pregnant and parenting teens, improve access to prenatal care and treatment for substance-using pregnant women, improve women of colors’ access to a wide range of birth options while promoting birth and parenting justice.
Code Pink
Location: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C.
[email protected]
https://www.codepink4peace.org/
CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end U.S. funded wars and occupations, to challenge militarism globally, and to redirect our resources into health care, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities.
Campaigns:
Arms are for Hugging
Close Guantanamo
Ground the Drones
Bring out War $$ Home
AHAVA: Stolen Beauty
Arrest War Criminals
Women’s Health & Justice Initiative (WHJI)
New Orleans, LA
[email protected]
WHJI is a radical feminist of color organization dedicated to improving the social and economic health of women of color and our communities, by challenging the use of punitive social policies, practices, and behaviors that restrict, criminalize, exploit, and police the bodies and lives of low-income and working class women of color.
International Internships
Indigenous Environmental Network
Location: Bemidji, MI
https://www.ienearth.org/
Goals:
1. Educate and empower Indigenous Peoples to address and develop strategies for the protection of our environment, our health, and all life forms – the Circle of Life.
2. Re-affirm our traditional knowledge and respect of natural laws.
3. Recognize, support, and promote environmentally sound lifestyles, economic livelihoods, and to build healthy sustaining Indigenous communities.
4. Commitment to influence policies that affect Indigenous Peoples on a local, tribal, state, regional, national and international level.
5. Include youth and elders in all levels of our work.
6. Protect our human rights to practice our cultural and spiritual beliefs.
Incite! Women of Color Against Violence
Locations: Los Angeles, CA; Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti, MI; Bay Area, CA; Binghamton, NY; Denver, CO; Fort Collins, CO; New Orleans, LA; New York, NY; Washington, D.C.
https://www.incite-national.org
INCITE! is a national activist organization of radical feminists of color advancing a movement to end violence against women of color and our communities through direct action, critical dialogue, and grassroots organizing.
Centro de Derechos de la Mujer de Chiapas (Center for Women’s Rights in Chiapas)
Location: Chiapas, Mexico
Third World Network
Location: Kuala Lumpur
ISIS International https://www.isiswomen.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1463&Itemid=250
Location: Philippines
The Global Health for Social Change (GHSC)
https://www.ghsci.org/
Slindo Shamase, Program Director, GHSC
[email protected]
Location: South Africa
GHSC Internship is a brand new international internship program this summer 2013 for college students interested in opportunities to experience how public health impacts local communities in South Africa.
The Global Health for Social Change (GHSC) Internship is an 8-week field placement program unlike any other in Africa where students are embedded with a local or international NGO supporting health and social change while living with a local host family for total cultural immersion. GHSC is a project of the Foundation for Professional Development (FPD), a major USAID PEPFAR (U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) partner here in South Africa.
Being embedded with the local NGOs will help you discover:
How NGO stakeholders help to decrease the burden of disease by supporting local health systems
What role NGOs play in development of a community by boosting health systems
How health is a critical driver of US policy toward South Africa and why health diplomacy is vital to the bi-lateral relationship between our countries
How key historic and political events of pre- and post-apartheid South Africa impact public health and disease dynamics
Location: Tshwane and Vhembe Districts, South Africa
We are accepting applications right now for placement this summer. Financial aid is available for students with demonstrated need.
Lajee Center International Work Camp
Location: Aida Refugee Camp, Bethlehem, West Bank, Palestine
The Lajee Center was established in 2000 by a group of volunteers from Aida Refugee Camp to create a safer environment for the children and residents of the camp and to provide beneficial activities for developing skills and knowledge.
Last year we welcomed volunteers from Belgium, Australia, Greece, USA, Italy, Denmark, Mexico, Spain, Scotland, Ireland, and England. They lived, worked and helped to clean up the land, plant trees as well as singing and dancing with the children and teenagers, listening to their stories and experiencing the reality of the Palestinian people.
The main goal of the Work Camp is to give participants the opportunity to meet different types of people, all with their own stories to tell, enabling them to understand better, the life of Palestinian refugees under occupation. Volunteers will participate in a mixture of activities with the children, the youth of Aida Camp, and the volunteers at the Lajee Center.
Activities:
– This year, the work will be on the land behind the Lajee Center to create more space for the children to play and as a way of allowing families to come together.
– Speakers. The talks will include local people with different backgrounds to speak to us about political, social, and economic issues. We’ll also discuss the issue of media coverage around Palestine, visiting media institutions, watching documentaries, and meeting with journalists.
– Participating in activities with children, such as football, basketball and games that you can bring from your own culture.
– Experiencing the culture through activities such as dabka (traditional folk-dance), singing, and music, visiting families in Aida Camp and different cities in the West Bank.
– Learning basic Arabic for conversation and one evening of cooking class with the women in Aida Camp.
– Outdoor camping for one night, near the Monastery of Mar Saba.
– One day off. You are free to go and explore places like the Dead Sea and Jerusalem.
