Alina’s Winter Internship Experience

Hello friends! My name is Alina and I was an intern for Passion Impact! In 2020 I got the chance to apply to a position at Passion Impact. This position was to become an intern for their organization. When I read through the application and looked through Passion Impact´s values and vision I was instantly intrigued. So I decided to apply to take my shot. Long story short I applied and had an interview and then I got accepted to the position! I was excited and nervous to take this opportunity because it was something new and different. Before this internship I was a different person. I had a different mindset and I lived in my comfort zone constantly. After this internship and after experiencing constant growth and knowledge, I can say that I have become a different person than before. I became more confident and I gained assurance during this internship. Not only did I regain my abilities I also learned new concepts and ideas. In this internship what led me to become a different person was being constantly challenged and reminded of serving instead of helping. At the beginning of the internship I was given a task to read and summarize an article. This article is called ¨Helping, fixing or serving.¨ To summarize this article, it was about understanding a new perspective of what civic engagement is. I learned that civic engagement is not about fixing or helping, it is about serving. This new perspective on civic engagement helped me look at it in a different way, this led to me serving my community instead of helping my community. As this activity led to growth and new knowledge, I became more aware and challenged myself to think beyond the action and more on the meaning. This was something so interesting and important to learn! Overall  I wanted to share the process of my growth, on how I understood the meaning of civic engagement. Being in this internship has taught me many valuable concepts and ideas. I will never forget my experience at Passion Impact. Because everything we did had a purpose. Every workshop, every ted talk, and every meeting had a meaning behind it. This experience was an opportunity for growth and knowledge. I got the chance to embrace and cherish my skills of leadership and civic engagement.