“My Communications Internship At Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast”
by Zoe Burnett
This semester, I started working at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast as a communications intern as a sophomore at Tulane. My freshman year, I took two reproductive rights and justice-focused classes, and I wanted to continue my interests outside of the classroom. When I was accepted as a communications intern at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, I was so excited to join an organization dedicated to providing sexual and reproductive healthcare, education, and information to individuals and families. During onboarding, I learned about the extensive services and care that are offered including cancer screenings, birth control, men’s health care, women’s health care, emergency contraception, STD testing/prevention/treatment, transgender hormone therapy, primary care, and more. My position as a communications intern is to help create social media content so Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast can further outreach about reproductive and sexual health information to raise awareness and educate broader audiences. A typical day for me includes creating TikTok educational content, researching other reproductive and sexual health creators, drafting educational resources, designing social media posts, and working with other team members on their specific projects including a podcast that my supervisor is doing with ProFrequency Radio on WHIV.
Since beginning my internship in August, I have made valuable connections with other Planned Parenthood staff members. I have sat in on meetings with the team members to discuss upcoming events and new strategies as well as brainstorm ideas. These weekly staff meetings gave me insight into how Planned Parenthood functions as an organization with teamwork and partnerships involved with uplifting communities and reproductive justice. I am very proud of the social media content that I have been able to create for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast on the TikTok profile @ppgulfcoast. One of my first TikTok projects was an interview-style video asking Tulane students what they first think about when they hear the words “Planned Parenthood.” The diverse responses were very interesting, but the best part was that after filming I got to inform students of the wide variety of services and resources that Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast provides. The video contained so many wonderful responses, but at the end, a full list of services that are actually provided was shown. This interview TikTok was very popular, and the team decided to include other college students in their own series. Volunteers from Xavier and LSU recorded and sent in their interviews with other college students, and I edited the videos into a TikTok series that asks people about reproductive health and justice. Overall, I am so thankful to be a part of the communications team at Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast. I plan to continue interning there for the remainder of my sophomore year and hopefully the rest of college.