A Brief Intro:
My name is Kalli, I'm an American undergraduate student from Glenwood, Iowa (Loras College), but I currently live and study in Lisbon, Portugal. Though I began as and secondary education major hoping to use the high school education system as a way to help kids and families out of poverty, the knowledge I gained on the fundamentally flawed system led me to pursue that same goal in different, perhaps, more 'macro' ways. Now, I study social policy (through the social work major), and Lusophone countries (through the international studies major). Thus, how ended up with the internship opportunity 4,387 miles away from home.
So, soon I'll be starting an internship position at the Portuguese Center for Refugee/Conselho Portuguesa para os Refugiados (CPR). I'll be working with refugee students at a kindergarten in a smaller town outside of Lisboa. I have to admit that I'm a bit nervous to work with children again, as I have done a few internships where I worked with children. Granted, those experience were good ones and taught me a lot, I was still not altogether thrilled to be working with kids. I love kids, but over the past few years I've learned that I prefer working with information and linguistics than I do with little people. I'm more in my element that way.
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| "Life is marvelous when you aren't afraid of it" |
That being said, I still am quite hopeful that I will learn something entirely new from this experience. Afterall, this is a different country, different culture, and different kids. And, it will be uniquely interesting to see how teachers are able to take students who are refugees from all over the world, and not only jump over the hurdles that early childhood brings, but also the language/cultural barriers that I'm sure are very much present.
By the sound of it I will be wearing many different hats while working at the center. I'll be spending most of my time working directly with the kids as a para-educator, but will spend time learning about the immigration process, how non-citizens find social welfare resources, and getting to know some parents and adult refugees also.
After I graduate from Loras, I hope to work with refugees and/or immigrants through one avenue or another. So, most of all, what I hope to learn, or rather feel, is what it's like to be the outsider. In other words, I want to know what it feels like to be the stranger in a strange land, the refugee. You see, I've experienced that a little bit in just living in Portugal, but in living with other international students I've had some commradery in that struggle. I'm hoping that this internship experience will help me to see through the eyes of a refugee in a better, more realistic, way. Outside of that, I'm not really sure what exactly I 'expect' to learn outside of those things, but I have a pretty good feeling that I will be learning much more.
Desejem-me boa sorte!
