Our Long-Term Internship program provides the most intensive opportunity for those interested in gaining substantial field experience working with one of our partner organizations. Participants delve deeply into the culture, language, and community they seek to learn about and support. Project work is designed and implemented by the intern in collaboration with a support staff that helps formulate objectives and turn them into realized goals. These long-term projects are funded by FSD up to $2,200 and reflect a combination of innovation and understanding of the local values, making the projects sustainable and empowering to the community. In addition, interns will receive intensive language training, along with courses on development issues and in grant-writing. Participants complete the long-term internship program with comprehensive experience in international development, while making a profound impact on the community they serve.
Long-Term internships begin September 10 and last for a minimum of 4 months. Typically, interns stay abroad for at least 5-6 months. A maximum of 6 interns are eligible for the internship position in each country and applications are accepted on a rolling basis beginning in May and ending in June (if space is still available).
Programs are available in: Bolivia, India, Nicaragua, Uganda. To learn about our programs in these countries, click here!
Areas of Focus for programs are: Health, Environment and Conservation, Youth and Education, Community Development, Women’s Empowerment, and Microfinance. To query organizations within each of these areas, click here!
FSD’s mission is to maximize participants’ learning experiences along with the impact they achieve with the host organizations. This is accomplished through our highly adaptable programs which involve:
Total Immersion: Only one FSD participant at a time works for a host organization. Similarly, each participant is the only English-Speaking foreigner with their host family.
Support: Participants are assisted by a web of FSD employees, which includes a Country Director and United States-born Program Assistant at the site of the program. Each work in tandem with the host organization supervisor to ensure a comfortable and productive work environment. Interns will be in constant contact with our support team, beginning with a one-week individual orientation and regular debriefing sessions that ensure the intern’s objectives are being met.
Organization Selection: Participants’ experience, interests, and skills are thoroughly evaluated and matched with a host organization that best utilizes their abilities and project interests. To search through our database of host organizations, click here!
Individual Project Implementation: Beyond assisting with a host organization’s existing sustainable development projects, students are highly encouraged to create and implement their own projects with the financial backing of FSD and the collaboration of the local community. To read about the projects implemented by interns in the Summer of 2005, click here!
Grant Writing Experience: Interns can compete in a grant competition funded by FSD to receive up to $2,000 toward their individual project proposals. These funds are in addition to the $200 seed money given to begin the project work.
Language Training: Participants are strongly encouraged to make language study a priority, allowing for increased contact with the local community. FSD provides a two-week intensive language course at the beginning of the India program and a one-week course at the start of the Uganda program. 1-2 hours per week of language instruction is continued throughout the internship. Our Latin American internships require language proficiency, so training is not provided. In all locations, FSD can arrange for private, inexpensive language tutoring.
Values & Sustainability: Participants experientially learn that development solutions must first recognize the delicate nature of the culture and community there are working within. Disrupting the existing system with temporary solutions or hand-outs can often do more harm than good. FSD strives to empower participants with a sustainable approach to their project work that recognizes the long-term impact and viability of their efforts. This is done through much collaboration with the local community, whereby participants listen and learn from the community before acting on its behalf.
Peer Development: Program participants join a large network of students and working professionals across the world that are passionate about sustainable development on a global scale. Interns may utilize this network to serve their professional development.
Scholarship: If you are a student, FSD is partnered with several university programs that offer scholarships for international development projects. If financial assistance needed, call FSD to make sure that you’re utilizing all the resources around you. To view a listing of scholarships and grants available at universities and to all students, nation-wide, please click here!
The Typical Volunteer: FSD supports participants who boldly wish to initiate the change they believe is necessary in the developing world. Interns are passionate about sharing their practical knowledge, heart-felt enthusiasm, and economic resources with communities abroad that suffer unnecessary hardship. They wish to gain hands-on, grassroots development experience because they believe change is most powerfully cultivated on a community level. The aim is to experientially learn how their work can empower the community toward applying sustainable development solutions, rather than increasing reliance on foreign aid. Participants choose FSD because the program structure enables them to design and implement their own sustainable projects in collaboration with their host organization. They are able to test their ideas and theories in the most direct way possible, giving them the experience and knowledge they seek. The flexibility of the host organizations allows for participants at all stages and levels of experience in international development to participate, thus opening the programs to a diverse group of capable applicants.
FSD is currently accepting applications for its Long-Term Internship Programs! Placements will be made on a rolling basis, so early applications will have priority. To receive an application,
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