"Throughout my internship with Trust for Youth and Child Leadership (TYCL) International, the projects I worked on focused primarily on the organization’s mission of reducing suicide among youth and improving access to education for indigenous children. I was part of TYCL’s team in organizing the Youth Creative Arts for Positive Mental Health Camp in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and the Youth Creative Arts for Social Justice Camp in the Bronx, New York. These camps engaged minority youth, such as youth of color and indigenous youth, to provide them with a safe, participatory, and inclusive space to do artistic activities as catalysts to express themselves positively. In the process of learning art techniques, youth participants also discuss how art could be a form of advocacy for mental health and social justice. Aside from the camps, I was also able to be part of their events at the United Nations Economic and Social Council Youth Forum and the High-Level Political Forum.

In all the programs I worked on, I applied the skills I gained from my current major, such as using the privilege, race, oppression, and power (PROP) lens in designing and implementing the camps. Using the PROP lens, I was able to ensure that the camps were safe and inclusive. Youth and children were allowed to be vulnerable and open to sharing their lived experiences in the discussions about social justice and mental health. I also applied the skills I learned from my grant writing course in writing a proposal for TYCL International’s project called the Village Incubation and Innovation Lab for indigenous children. TYCL International uses the proposal to look for funding for the project. Another project I worked on was co-writing a research paper on the Youth Helpline program. Using the skills I learned from the Social Work Research class, I contributed to the paper by writing literature reviews and statistical interpretations of the data collected

TYCL International also has an office that operates actively in India. When I started the internship, I was still located in Indonesia. Therefore, there was a challenge in terms of time difference. Some virtual meetings to discuss our projects took place at midnight in my time zone and late at night in India to accommodate the team that worked in New York. However, it became less challenging when I moved to New York. I still needed to start my internship early when I needed to discuss projects with the India team. Nevertheless, it was more manageable than when I was in Indonesia. This challenge also allowed me to learn how it feels to work with an international team that is located in different countries

My internship with TYCL International gave valuable insights on how to create meaningful impacts in societies with a strong presence of oppression and discrimination. I learned that, in India, caste-based and gender-based discrimination is still prevalent. Therefore, it is important to consider the implication of existing discrimination and review available evidence-based practices in creating programs for marginalized communities. As I will go back to Indonesia upon graduating, I believe that the knowledge and skills I gained from interning with TYCL International will be valuable to serve the communities that face similar challenges in my home country."