Hi! I’m Alejandra González Vargas, a rising senior at Tulane. I study Anthropology and Business Management and I’m a Newcomb Scholar. This summer, with NCI’s support, I’ll be a Program Associate Intern with Libraries Without Borders at their Washington, D.C. office.
Libraries Without Borders is the U.S. branch of the French NGO Bibliothèques Sans Frontières. For nearly three years now, LWB has operated a variety of programs in the U.S., focusing on legal empowerment, access to information, and education in emergencies. These core programs are known as the Legal Literacy Initiative, the Wash & Learn Initiative (WALI), and the Ideas Box in Puerto Rico. I’ll talk about their work in more detail in a future blog post; in short, LWB works to provide accessible information to underserved communities around the world, with a specific emphasis on serving individuals who live in the U.S. Their vision is to equip all people in the United States with the tools and skills to make informed decisions and to engage with their communities.
I’m excited to be a part of this work and learn about nonprofit management, policy and programming. Since I expect this internship will help me prepare for a career in this field, I’ve prepared a checklist of five learning objectives I’d like to meet during the summer. In summary, I want to learn: 1) to plan and budget locally customized programs, 2) to think critically about business administration in a 501(c)3 organization, 3) to understand the local vs global implications of managing a branch of an international NGO, 4) to learn about effective marketing in this context, and 5) to grow confident in my ability to become a professional in this field.
My internship will begin in late June. During nine weeks this summer, I will be working with the organization’s Executive Director, Adam Echelman, to coordinate and grow LWB’s work. In the meantime, I have been preparing by reading extensively about LWB’s work domestically and internationally, and I plan to check in with my supervisor in late May to discuss what further preparation I should undertake before I arrive. Also, my co-supervisor, Katherine Trujillo, has been emailing me newsletters to follow, which I have been reading for a few weeks now.
I’m very grateful to NCI for their support, especially since LWB’s mission and values tie closely with NCI’s: both organizations, I find, value access to information, modern approaches to education, and social justice. I think this experience will complement my Tulane education and my learning through the Scholars program with important, practical experience in leadership and critical thinking. I will be expected to think on my feet, learn quickly, and work well under pressure. I’m excited for this challenge! My next blog post will discuss my first two weeks of work. Till then!
–Ale