First Week of Work

IMPRESSIONS:

The more I learn about the behind the scenes workings of UN.GIFT, the more I am impressed by the fact that the whole organization is run by just 5 women...but not just any 5 women, 5 of the most passionate and dedicated women I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. The most impressive part is the amount of programming and publications they produce considering their exceptionally limited budget.

The budget is one thing that I think I often forget when I think about U.N. agencies...with all the huge impressive buildings and all the talk about large projects and initiative...I forget that a large part of each agency's work is essentially fundraising. Constantly looking for U.N. member countries to pledge financial support for their work.

In practice, despite being a part of the U.N., GIFT functions essentially as an NGO, struggling to complete major objectives with a small staff and an even smaller budget. Their accomplishments and commitment to the cause,in light of this, are humbling.

FINDING MY PLACE:

As with any new position, the first few days were slow and somewhat unclear as to what my role would be with UN.GIFT; and, me, being me...was a bit impatient to start out running! Now, a week in, I feel I've found my place (for the most part) and a good pace of work.

I'm mainly working on three things:

1. Helping coordinate the UN.GIFT and Harvard joint initiative to set-up a field research course on human trafficking that will travel to Moldova in January 2012!!!! This means I get to go with the two course assistants to Moldova the first week of July to set up the logistics of the course. It also means that I've been making phone calls to Moldova this week setting up the meetings for July, and its been so much fun remembering my Romanian and hearing some familiar and some new Moldovan voices. I'm really excited about the potential impact of a joint-Harvard and UN report on trafficking in Moldova.

2. Manage and update web content, especially focusing on recent publications, events and success stories from NGOs and Governments worldwide on anti-human trafficking efforts. This is a great opportunity for me to learn basic web-design and also to be continually up-to-date on all the latest happenings in the field. You can check out the site, and nearly everything posted/updated after June.3rd is me! www.ungift.org

Also, as a part of this, I'm going to be attending the OSCE international conference on human trafficking June 20-21; at which, I'll be responsible for interviewing as many participating organizations as possible to do a full online news feature series. I'm still trying to figure out how to work the voice recorder...eek.

3. This one is a keep fingers crossed that it all falls into place...UN.GIFT and the Carr Center for Human Rights (at the Kennedy School) are hoping to coordinate a year-long webinar series on human trafficking. All the kinks haven't yet been worked out, but if it gets sorted out, then I'll be helping to set the agenda/curriculm for the series.

SETTLING IN SOCIALLY

There is a very active intern community at the U.N. building, and they are all so much fun! I feel similar to my first few weeks at the Kennedy school--simply amazed at the backgrounds and experiences of the people I meet. All the interns (regardless of what agency they work for) are assigned desks in intern office space. I have 5 other interns in my office--four of whom are either recent law school grads or current law students. A French lawyer working with the UNODC on anti-drug trafficking, a Canadian lawyer turned social worker also working with UNODC but on drug prevention and treatment, an American law student (2L) working with UNODC on public private partnerships in the fight against drugs, a Polish lawyer working on inputting human-trafficking case-law into a new database that will be launched hopefully in August, and then the only other non-lawyer, a Lebonese masters student studying international security/counter-terrorism who is working on a counter-corruption/counter-human trafficking training program for law enforcement officials.

It seems crazy that we are all "interns", which I still associate with being an undergrad fetching coffee and making copies...but its amazing the people I get to be around every day. Its nice also, since we are all foreigners here and usually only for 3-6months, so we automatically bond and there is an immediate social network, which I truly hope will last beyond the summer.