International Program Associates
The World is Waiting for You
The Catholic University of America’s Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies (IPR) is offering international social development experiences to CUA graduating undergraduates, masters, and doctoral students. International Program Associates (IPA) provides a unique opportunity to gain professional experience by spending 10-weeks working for an international NGO in the summer.
IPA aims to respond to the increasing need for international social development. In addition, the program also serves as an educational and professional opportunity for CUA students to engage and partner with international agencies while learning about the various issues that face the world today.
Benefits of the International Program Associates
- Provides students with the opportunity to gain professional international social development experience
- Immerses the student in a different culture, allowing them to utilize their skills to assist local communities, international agencies, and most importantly, the people themselves with their problems and solutions
- Allows students to apply the knowledge gained in the classroom
- Creates opportunities to practice a variety of skills: grant writing, program evaluation, strategic planning, needs assessments, operational planning, conceptual framework or programs, and capacity-building projects
Possible Placements
Philippines:
IPA students will work with Community and Family Services International in Manila, which is an international non-governmental organization working on issues of social development and conflict resolution, working primarily in Asia and the Pacific. CFSI is committed to peace and social development, with a particular interest in the psychosocial dimension. The organization’s programs focus on humanitarian assistance, social development, child and family welfare, health promotion, and research. Placement opportunities in the Philippines include: youth programs, group work, program and business administration, and needs assessments and evaluations
Tanzania
Looking to gain experience in social enterprise, economic empowerment, community development, non-profit management, women’s development, refugee reintegration? Join WomenCraft and have the experience of a lifetime. Exchange skills. Live and learn. WomenCraft is a community driven social enterprise that connects talented rural East African artisans with regional and international fair-trade markets. Its members create high-quality handcrafted products that preserve local traditions and incorporate environmentally-sustainable local materials. WomenCraft pays its members fair wages and uses its profits to provide services to its members, their families and their communities. As a result members build business acumen and gain practical skills so that they can eventually take ownership of the enterprise. IPA students will stay in a local guest house near the agency. Skills needed by Womencraft are those in marketing, business, product design, women’s development, fair trade, media and website design.
Nicaragua
The John Paul II Technical Institute opened in 1999 to provide vocational training and high school subjects to the poor children of the capital city of Managua. Its partner school, Flor de Maria Rizo, is located in the beautiful mountains of Jinotega. This school provides technical education to the children of the campesinos, coffee pickers on a large coffee plantation. These Catholic schools have need of English teachers, social workers, nurses, media and web site designers, fund-raisers, grant writers, and community organizers.
Vietnam
IPA students work with a local NGO that offers family-strengthening programs to members of the surrounding communities. The NGO aims to identify struggling families and provide support so that their children will be safe and healthy and can attend school. This site is located in Da Nang, the largest city on the south-central coast of Vietnam.
