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5th year of KCCI Summer Internship programme gets underway

By Jyoti Rao

New Delhi, 6 June 2009: The fifth year of the annual KCCI Summer Internship programme has commenced on 3rd June and will go on till 12th August 2009. A total of 66 interns, 31 Indian and 35 international graduate students are participating this year.

After three days of intensive orientation, the interns took off for the field to start their case study assignments. Divided into teams of 4-5, the interns will spread out across 11 states in India to assess and produce written case studies focusing on capacity development in the sectors of education, health, behaviour change communication, child nutrition and development, water and sanitation monitoring and evaluation and polio eradication. The interns will primarily study UNICEF supported projects in these areas.

 Tara Marie Lynch, 33, a first year Masters student in International Educational Development from Columbia University, New York, learnt about the   KCCI Internship Programme from her university departmental listing of internships. Since she was particularly interested in doing an internship that provided field experience in India or Nepal, she opted for the UNICEF programme.

 “I’m excited… and daunted!” she said, “I’m really looking forward to gaining hands-on research skills”. Tara also hopes this experience will help channel her career choice in a more definitive direction.

Tara and 3 other interns will be based in Hyderabad in the state of Andhra Pradesh to study “Promoting Sport for Development” in the district of Medak.

Twenty-one year old Nadiah Usman Sidik from Tanzania has been to India a few times before mainly for tourism. “I am very excited to be going to Lucknow for my case study. I’ve always wanted to go there!” she said. Nadiah has just completed her Masters from University College London in International Child Health.

Nadiah and her all-girls team will be studying the role of Block Communication Officers in the Government’s National Rural Health Mission programme in the state of Uttar Pradesh and identify avenues to enhance their capacity.

The interns’ teams will travel to their allotted field sites for around 5-6 weeks from 6th June through the first week in August during which they will review available literature, meet and question people, undertake research work, documentation and writing up of case studies.

They will all return to New Delhi around 10th August and present their case studies in a concluding workshop over 2 days on 11th and 12 August 2009.

UNICEF's summer internship programme began in 2005 under the aegis of the Knowledge Community on Children in India (KCCI), an initiative aimed at fostering the exchange of information and learning on social policies and programmes related to children in India.