Meet Our Intern, Tessa!
Meet Tessa Rothwell, a Manhattanville student and one of our amazing interns. Read as she shares her experience working with Hearts & Homes for Refugees, first as a volunteer and then as an intern this spring.
“My involvement with Hearts & Homes began during the fall semester, where I volunteered at the weekly Wednesday evening women’s group. This group consisted of women from Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere. The purpose of the program was to provide a chance for these women to converse in English and learn new vocabulary/phrases as we discussed various topics. By the end of the semester, I was helping to run the sessions rather than just participating. One week, I even led a session. This not only developed my leadership skills but allowed me to share a host of experiences from my own culture and learn from the women about their cultures. My favorite discussion was our talk on holidays, where I was able to use my previous class notes to explain the myth of Thanksgiving from an activist lens and teach them something that even I hadn’t even learned myself until college. I was also able to introduce them to Irish music I listened to growing up for our discussion on St. Patrick's Day. Meanwhile, they taught me about their own homelands and cultures, along with their own favorite holidays and celebrations. This sharing of culture and pride for one's identity in the world was very moving.
Fast forward to the spring, where I have just completed an internship with Hearts & Homes, where I’ve been since mid-January. My work includes updating the website with up-to-date news on the refugee crisis, working with our database system, reaching out to constituents who donated in-kind to thank them, attending webinars, and any other tasks the organization might need. It’s given me a real insight into grassroots advocacy. You don't realize how many steps there are to onboard new refugees and to resettle them into new jobs and homes until you see all the intricate steps from behind-the-scenes at a nonprofit like Hearts & Homes. The organization is also involved with a network of nonprofits nationwide who are helping refugees. By attending these webinars for nationwide nonprofits, it has shown me the great scale of people who are working to make a positive difference. Additionally, it's remarkable to see how quickly community members will rise to the occasion to help out in their neighborhoods. Hearts & Homes runs using a model known as community sponsorship, which relies on volunteers from the local area, including local faith and civic groups, to form networks of support. I am proud to have interned for an organization so focused on creating such positive change, beginning at a local level but, like ripples in a pond, ending up having national and international impacts.”