Hans Jacob Christensen
Privilege is said to be invisible to those who have it. That doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye to the solution.
Referencing a Dr. Michael Kimmel lecture on gender differences, a former professor of mine at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln once provided this quotation to our class. For those who want to be a part of witnessing, studying, and solving problems in the impoverished communities around Cape Town, a SASDI internship is an incredible opportunity to focus on changing lives of the underprivileged. SASDI provides a unique approach to Early Childhood Development and other areas of need in the Southern Africa region. Rather than focus on the many benefits and gains that SASDI is making in communities, however, I want to focus on the benefits an internship with SASDI can have on the intern.
At SASDI, I felt like I had part ownership in the organization and the direction in which it was going. Every day we were given ample opportunities to express our opinions and control our own projects for SASDI, with the trustees and their contacts providing guidance only when necessary. This type of leadership and personal growth opportunity is not available everywhere, and had a huge impact on how I approach my own work and personal goals today. They immerse interns in a proven process for managing a project and then set them free to be creative and responsible for the success of that project.
My team was given the task of re-strategizing the SASDI e-Marketing campaign, and the expectations were high for best-practice results. An eye-opening moment for me during the process was our initial project plan presentation, which was meant to detail the specifics of how we would accomplish this new campaign. Our first slide had the incorrect words for the acronym “SASDI”, and the rest of the presentation went downhill from there. This was the first time I understood the type of work and preparation that would be necessary to impress a real-world audience, rather than a classroom full of lecture attendees.
In the end, we were all given the chance to show how we had improved, presenting to the City of Cape Town. By then I realized how much our team had improved and how much more confident I felt personally in my abilities. And we managed to use the correct name for the organization in our final presentation. I will never forget that SASDI stands for “Southern Africa Sustainable Development Initiative,” rather than “South African Sustainable Development Initiative.”