/ Gender & Urban Communities in Cape Verde Subscribe

From participating and organizing community-based events/activities through Uni-CV, this gave further insight and knowledge in navigating my final internship project on gender-based violence in urban communities of Praia, Cape Verde. This contributed to extending  my experience of research in the social science field along with my professional growth in how to approach challenges in the handout of the workplace. I feel I was able to achieve the overall aim of my internship and some of my personal goals. I think I did have to adjust some of my goals more than halfway through my internship because of scheduling conflicts with my supervisors and reflecting upon what kind of legacy I wanted to leave behind for future interns to encounter along their way, especially in building the foundation to gender scholarship in Cape Verde.

I think the organizational culture of Cape Verde is quite interesting in the sense that time and the work-life balance differ drastically from what I’m used to in America. I tried my best to understand and respect what is considered professional in the working environment for both America and Cape Verde. Considering the stark differences in work culture, I was able to take some traits to incorporate into my day-to-day work-life balance such as taking more breaks for myself throughout the day and enjoying a cup of meia de leite (coffee with milk) in the evening as a treat. I think I was quite surprised how immensely friendly everyone is where I worked and  how they would even offer to cook a meal for me briefly after meeting them or invite me out to lunch with friends. I think I felt more at ease and included in a lot of different conversations and furthering my understanding and context of Cape Verde.

With this internship, I feel more confident in pursuing research in law policies and community advocacy because of how much interaction I had with local communities and the meaningful connections I made in the process. As I mentioned earlier on, I did have to arrive a bit later to my internship but I had attended for a week via zoom which brought on a few challenges for me. I think the first and foremost of it was that a lot of my colleagues and supervisors were quite hands-on with the activities that they were doing so I basically had to take a backseat to a lot of the work that they were doing. I think that being online for that week only restricted me from being able to fully participate in the work process and engage with people. Primarily, I think that it’s important for future interns to understand that they miss a great deal of context and interaction when they’re working on zoom and that this internship should be done minimally to none online to fully take advantage of interacting with people from all walks of life. 

With the knowledge I gained through this internship, I don’t think there’s anything I would’ve changed about it except for my visa situation in which I wish I could’ve paid more attention to considering I did arrive a bit later than expected to my internship destination. A lesson I would take with me in becoming an intern supervisor would be reassuring my interns and having faith in their abilities and skills. I feel that it may be difficult for interns to assert themselves and take lead in projects. Therefore, I hope to encourage future interns to have confidence in themselves and in pursuing their projects because in the end, the work and effort that they sow will come to fruition!