It’s hard to believe my time with COPE is more than halfway done! It feels like I’ll be back in the US in the blink of an eye. I’ve done a lot of different work with COPE over the last couple of weeks, including a prison visit this past Wednesday. With our partner Relais Enfants Parents, I volunteered to accompany children on visits with their fathers at the Fleury-Mérogis Prison outside of Paris; it is the largest prison in Europe. Despite working all summer on research and advocacy efforts on behalf of these children, this was my first time actually having direct contact of children of prisoners and it was my first time in prison. This was perhaps the most valuable experience I’ve had all summer as I was able to see the importance of the work I am doing. I hope to find similar volunteer opportunities once I return to Louisiana.
Going back to my normal internship work–I think that, at this point, I have made some progress in all of my stated learning goals from the beginning of the summer. The other full-time intern had to leave unexpectedly about halfway through the month of June, so I ended up taking on her responsibilities and my own for the rest of June until the awareness campaign was over. Playing both roles at COPE really helped my leadership and initiative skills. I was given a task and left full responsibility to ensure it was completed. I’ve also done quite a bit of translating since arriving at COPE and feel as though my writing skills in French have improved.
The way I’ve been monitoring my growth thus far has been to keep several drafts of my work to see the changes I’ve made. I’m also keeping a list on my computer of new vocabulary words and structural nuances I’ve picked up in French since working with COPE. In tracking my progress and being given a large amount of work I have been able to build some important marketable skills for the future. First and foremost, my translation capacity has greatly improved over this summer. As someone interested in potentially working in France or with an international organization, translation skills are extremely important. I am also planning on taking a theory of translation course next semester back at Tulane, so the work I’m doing this summer will help prepare me for the more difficult translations I will face in the fall.
I also unexpectedly gained quite a bit of graphic design experience over the past few weeks. The other intern was initially in charge of creating the graphic designs for our awareness campaign and controlling social media, but after she left her job was given to me. I had to learn how to use her design program (it’s called Canva and I highly recommend it!) and became comfortable with Hootsuite. Although these were not skills I was planning to learn, I’m happy I gained more experience with social media and proud of how quickly I was able to take this project on.
Those are all my updates for now! I’ll check back in once the internship is complete for some final reflections.