Sally’s Internship Epiphany

I always learn something fundamental about life with every trip I make abroad. So I was getting a bit disappointed when I had not had an epiphany close to the end of my internship in Cape Town. I had been working at my internship for two and a half months at that point, and I had just two weeks left. My host organization is a non-profit organization that promotes transparency in the South African Parliament by collecting information from all committee meetings in parliament and making the information available to the public online. My job was to attend these meetings and take minutes, collect copies of all documents presented, and write a comprehensive report of each meeting within 48 hours of the meeting. I liked my job because it gave me the opportunity to attend high-level government meetings, particularly in economic development and international affairs. It gave me a first-hand look at the policy creation process in South Africa.

Some of the highlights of my experience included attending a meeting hosted by the South African government for Saharawi representatives from both Western Sahara and Morocco, to enable the Parliament of South Africa to reevaluate its position regarding the conflict between the two countries. I also got the opportunity to network with officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) when they came to parliament to make a presentation to the Finance committee.

Unfortunately, not all the meetings I attended were interesting. By my last month, parliament was about to go on recess, so most of the meetings were basically presentations of long annual reports by different government departments. At this point, I was doubtful about whether this internship was the best fit for me. But during our annual office party, my boss said something that completely changed my perspective: she thanked all the interns for the service they were providing for free. Apparently, we were saving the organization a lot of money in terms of labor costs, because it primarily depended on donor funding to operate. That was the first time it really dawned on me that my work was actually meaningful: each report I wrote made it possible for the civil society, the media, and the South African people in general to monitor the performance of their government. Few countries in Africa had this privilege.

I had been so focused on what I was gaining from my internship that I had completely overlooked what I was giving. From that point onwards, I worked on my reports with renewed enthusiasm; I wanted to make even the most boring meetings easy to comprehend through my reports. In the end, I left Cape Town feeling enlightened. I want to use my skills to add value to the world; to do something bigger than myself that will motivate me to give more of myself even when I don’t feel like it. I’m not exactly sure what that “thing” is, but I’m hoping I’ll figure it out when I make my next trip abroad.

This is Sally’s final blog post about her adventures in Cape Town.  You can find Sally’s previous post here.