Mckenzie Libbey

October 17, 2014

"This is What I Heard": Translating Across Culture and Experience in Non-Profit Work

Covenant House International is a non-profit organization that serves homeless and runaway youth in the United States, Canada, and Latin America. This summer, I spent ten weeks interning at Covenant House's headquarters in their Latin America Department. Working as a part of a small team that relied heavily on interns, I had the opportunity to conduct independent research on the child migrant crisis at the Texas border, write briefings on the political climate in each country for the president of the organization, and coordinate with Covenant House's four shelters in Latin America to prepare grant proposals by utilizing my Spanish language skills. Through my internship, I gained professional skills, insight into the inner workings of a major non-profit, and the opportunity to grapple with the following questions: How does one promote true collaboration and equality between remote coordinators in New York and on-the-ground staff in Mexico and Central America? How do those employees, who share a common mission, communicate across culture and experience? Drawing on the work I completed and observed at Covenant House and my Mount Holyoke education, this presentation will discuss these questions and more as they relate to both domestic and cross-cultural non-profit work.