There are many assumptions that come with the words “intern” and “nonprofit” – interns make coffee, run around, and print stuff, and nonprofits have cramped offices and few worker benefits. My past two months at Right To The City have proved that these assumptions couldn’t be more wrong.
At Right To The City, I have been treated like an equal member of the team (really, we call each other “comrades”), with everyone patiently teaching me the ropes whilst bringing me on board with an equal share of work. I have done and experienced way beyond the research requirement, taking on grant writing, event planning, and more administrative work to support an organization I have grown to care about immensely. There are not enough words to describe the incredible work environment and support system that this crew of professionals have provided me with – we do regular check-ins, meditations, reflections, and are always looking out for each other.
What has drawn me so magnetically towards this organization is the passion and emotion behind all the work. Having dipped my toes into places like the UN, I find lifeless policy work incredibly difficult to engage with. Right To The City is the kind of organization that feels and cares about the people it serves and the work it has to do. It is beyond capacity in its effort to protect the communities it works to protect from gentrification, eviction, and the harmful effects of housing cuts.
I am most proud this summer of the research I produced through meticulous combing through literature, the internet and many interviews with people involved in alternative land and housing movements and models. The research itself was a learning process: learning to ask the right questions, understanding how certain structures operate and the variables in every one, analysing and critiquing in intelligent and informed ways – the list goes on. The research was sort of a self-constructed crash course in beyond-market land and housing models.
If I were to advise someone going into this topic, or really any kind of community engaged research, I would say be honest: let people know when you don’t understand something, ask people to clarify, and don’t be afraid to ask questions; but DO do your homework and have a grasp of the jargon an terminology, the structures you are interacting with, the political/economic/social frameworks that interact in your topic etc. Immersing myself background research saved me from a lot of awkward conversations and allowed me to ask intelligent, informed questions.
I don’t know how much I can say I have “changed” so much as I can say I have grown. This has been perhaps my most real interaction with serious work, where my participation and effort was the difference between no grant and a $50,000 grant. I can honestly say I put my heart into the work I did here, and I am elated to announce that Right To The City has officially signed me on as a member of staff, and I will be working there full time once I graduate 🙂
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