Advocacy

Alejandro Turino, Using USA Development in Latin America

The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) is a leading research and advocacy organization advancing human rights in the Americas. WOLA envisions a future where public policies protect human rights and recognize human dignity, and where justice overcomes violence. WOLA tackles problems that transcend borders and demand cross-border solutions. The organization creates strategic partnerships with courageous people making social change—advocacy organizations, academics, religious and business leaders, artists, and government officials. Together, they advocate for more just societies in the Americas.

This fall I interned with the Washington Office on Latin America, carrying out research for the Central America Monitor. The monitor is a new initiative led by WOLA and local partner organizations to track U.S. assistance to Central America and evaluate the progress that Central America is making to reduce violence, safeguard human rights, strengthen law enforcement and the rule of law, combat corruption, and increase accountability and transparency.

Since starting my work, I have been offered networking opportunities I could have never imagined receiving in places other than DC. For example, I interacted with multiple diplomats and private sector personnel from across Latin America. My work has allowed me to meet numerous practitioners of international development and human rights advocates, including top officials from some of the world’s best-known NGOs.

WOLA also raised my awareness towards the impact of development. My role as a research fellow allowed me to gain insight on how international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) operate both internally and externally in the quest to address global societal problems. I investigated how the Guatemalan government was professionalizing their police force, to avoid human rights abuses on the part of law enforcement, and to create a force that would no longer require help from the nation’s military. I constantly sent Freedom of Information Requests (FOIAs) to the Ministerio de Gobernacion (Interior Ministry) in Guatemala to obtain data we needed on issues such as police budgets and numbers of officers. My work at WOLA has allowed me to both understand the Central America region more in depth, and to see how human rights and their preservation are key to successful human and societal development.

Alejandro Turino was a MAIR student who graduated in December 2020. He also interned at Oxfam and the Pan American Development Foundation.

MAIR Program at the Maxwell School
Maxwell-in-Washington Program

Alejandro Turino, Learning International Development through Theory and Practice

Sybelle Rodriquez, A New Passion for Advocacy

This summer I was an intern at InterAction, a nonprofit organization that serves as a convener for the NGO community and as a space for collaboration and action. Focusing on policy, advocacy, development and humanitarian practice, InterAction contributes to advances in these fields internationally.

I was an intern in the public policy team. I focused on the budget and appropriations work where I followed the humanitarian assistance and development accounts of the Federal Budget. This experience has helped me understand the budget and appropriations process in more detail and the complexity behind it. Mostly I worked with InterAction’s foreign assistance budget expert, explored data visualizations, and gained a better understanding of nonprofit dynamics in the office.

This experience helped me to reaffirm my interest in international development and helped me discover a new passion for advocacy. There is value in educating and helping people communicate their own beliefs because it gives them the ability to act. In addition, I have gained an understanding about NGOs and how they work together to reach consensus and move forward. The opportunity to interact every day with many people with different backgrounds and expertise and learn from them is something that I will always be grateful for.

Sybelle Rodriguez at InterAction Forum 2018

My days at InterAction made me understand the importance of giving your best effort. Waking up every day thinking that your work can save lives is a great reason to give your best. While I was in Washington, DC working in an office, my work impacted the life of someone on the other side of the world and this was the biggest lesson InterAction gave me: it does not matter how small the task, the task matters.

While I still have a long way to go in my career, InterAction surely marked my journey as I continue to discover my path.

Sybelle Rodriguez is a joint MPA/MAIR student. She went on to intern at InterAction in the fall of 2018 as well, and she is now in Washington, DC interning at Search for Common Ground.

MPA/MAIR Program at the Maxwell School

Maxwell-in-Washington Program

All Global Programs

Amery Sanders, LGBTI Rights at European Parliament

Amery Sanders is a MAIR student focusing on human rights.

From May 25th through July 14th, I lived and worked in Brussels as part of Syracuse University’s Public Diplomacy program.  While not a Public Diplomacy student myself—I’m a graduate student pursuing the MA International Relations (MAIR) degree—I chose the Brussels program for its abundance of opportunities in my interest areas of human rights, diplomacy, and international NGO work.  I was incredibly fortunate enough to secure an internship at the Brussels seat of the European Parliament, one of the three core legislative institutions of the European Union.  I served as a trainee in the office of dynamic Finnish MEP Sirpa Pietikäinen.

Amery Sanders’ last day at work, below the third-floor bridge of the EU Parliament bearing the official institutional logo

I reached out to MEP Pietikäinen’s office because of her work in the leadership of the European Parliament’s Intergroup on LGBTI Rights, a coordinated cross-party effort by MEPs to advance and support the rights of LGBTI people.  As a queer graduate student with a professional and academic focus in international transgender human rights, securing a place in her office meant I was able to work right at the heart of the European Union’s LGBTI-centric activities while also gaining in-depth understanding of EU institutional and legislative work.

During my seven weeks in Brussels, I split my time between doing administrative work for the MEP, working with Intergroup Secretariat Juliette Sanchez-Lambert, and doing research around the MEP’s special interest areas of queer freedom of movement, employment discrimination, partner and family rights, health care discrimination, and asylum rights.  I attended Parliament events around LGBTI issues and was privileged to be able to attend the 7th European Transgender Council, an annual conference hosted by TGEU, the largest transnational member organization of transgender activists in Europe.  Over the course of the internship I worked to develop a reference packet on individual LGBTI topics, to be used by MEPs and other officials as a resource guide in the lead up to the 2019 parliamentary elections.  Of especial significance to me personally, I was asked to give critical feedback on the Fundamental Rights Agency’s EU LGBT Survey; my critiques and suggestions were taken to a Vienna meeting to help determine the structure and content of the next version of the survey.

Materials from the 7th European Transgender Council, including their Strategic Plan, self-critical Anti-Activity Report, policy supporting sex workers, and guide for working with the United Nations

Brussels was a city both beautiful and politically complex, and I was deeply satisfied by my time there—by the work I was able to do, the connections I was able to make, and the knowledge I was able to gain.  I feel like I was able to get exactly the glimpse “behind the curtain” of transnational LGBTI-centric rights work that I have heretofore been unable to access.  It’s re-energized me in a way I could only have hoped for, and which I think will serve me well as I go forward in my academics and my career.

Exterior view of the European Parliament building in Brussels–or at least one small corner of it!

Public Diplomacy Internships in Brussels Program

Maxwell’s MAIR Degree