As an International Politics major, it has always been within my plans to find an internship internationally. Throughout my search for how to make this process as painless as possible, I ran across Connect-123 and was instantly interested. I had heard many great reviews from previous students having experiences with Connect-123, so I decided to trust their process and take a chance on an experience of a lifetime!

After working with Connect-123’s coordinators, I got paired with a gender-based violence organization in Cape Town, South Africa! However, as the world started to suffer from the COVID-19 pandemic, I was unable to travel and work in South Africa due to travel restrictions, but the staff at Connect-123 was with me through all of the challenges by providing very enhanced and creative alternate solutions. I was still able to participate in the internship remotely with the same organization where I worked on their program, workshop, and counseling development by doing lots of research and compiling information to create manuals and guides for social workers to use within their programming. While it was not the summer I had imagined, I still gained a lot of skills that will be useful in our technology-centered world going forward. Throughout the summer, Connect-123 was right there with me by providing professional development seminars and fun, cultural sessions to introduce us to our would-be destinations. I will always be grateful to the support that Connect-123 has given me through this unprecedented time.