Report

The Coca Cola World Citizenship Program offered me an opportunity that I would not have found elsewhere.  Through this program I was able to spend the summer in Costa Rica, working for the World Vision organization in the area of communications.  As I am working on a Master’s in Mass Communication, the internship was especially helpful.  Working for World Vision was an enriching experience.  The people I met and the places I visited will stay with me for a lifetime.  Thank you to Coca Cola, World Vision, and the University of Florida for such a wonderful opportunity!

While with World Vision, I spent time visiting different social projects with the end goal of bettering the quality of life of Costa Rican children.  As part of my work, I spoke with people involved in the projects, took photographs, and later wrote stories about what I had learned.  I really enjoyed what I was doing.  Some of the projects I visited included a recycling center that was run by a group of women, a project that planted a hardier grain of rice in farming towns, a project that focused on the building of solar ovens and biodigesters, and a project that helped plant school gardens that were used to produce food for the schools’ kitchens.  While in the office in San José, I spent time creating new graphics and banner ads for World Vision’s Costa Rican website.  I also did translating from English to Spanish and Spanish to English.

One of the most interesting parts of the experience was learning how a non-profit organization like World Vision is run and why communications are important for their success.  At UF, most of the focus is on hard news journalism, or magazine work, so it was interesting to see communications in action in a different environment.  I learned about photography and improved both my written and spoken Spanish.  I also learned how World Vision works and what is important to the organization.

The experience made me re-evaluate my goals and opened new doors.  Before this experience, I had never given much thought to the non-profit world, but I absolutely loved working in an organization whose goal was to help people.  It made the workday shorter and more enjoyable.  It was a wonderful and interesting summer that I will never forget!

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