“My Semester Abroad With Lift Louisiana”
by Grace Harsche
This semester, I returned to work with Lift Louisiana as the Development Intern. Although my internship over the summer was remote, this semester I worked remotely from my study abroad city of Amsterdam. It was a challenge at times to balance odd work hours, but overall I found doing this work in an entirely new context to be fun and refreshing. In the Netherlands, abortion has been legal since 1984 and is a completely free service. The country has extremely low rates of abortion along with low rates of teen pregnancy and STIs. This is primarily due to the compulsory sex-ed from ages four and on in the Netherlands. While completing some of my internship projects this semester, I found myself looking around at my surroundings for ideas and inspiration. The mission and work of Lift align very closely with a lot of policies and programs that have been codified as rights in the Netherlands. Seeing how this country was able to do so definitely gave me ideas for what the team at Lift and I could do back home.
Although my work location was entirely different, I focused on a lot of the same things that I focused on in my summer internship, while growing and expanding my knowledge in these areas. I primarily focused on grant searching. Although I started over the summer without knowledge of grant searching, this semester I found my search process to be much easier and more effective. I have gained many important skills in grant searching, including how to effectively use keywords, where my time is best spent looking, and how to quickly assess whether or not Lift meets the criteria for a grant. Another big project I took on this semester was organizing donor data for 2021 and 2022. Something which I really enjoyed about both of these projects and my role, in general, is that you can have moments where your work feels trivial, but there is always one large moment where you realize how much your work matters. Sorting out the funding for Lift is what allows the organization to do so much amazing work, and I am really proud to help in this area.
Overall, I enjoyed my semester with Lift Louisiana and have learned so much. I am looking forward to returning to Lift in the spring to continue my work in grant searching and begin working on grant writing. A special thanks to my supervisor, Jennifer Sackeyfio. I look forward to updating you all once again in the spring.