I have had the opportunity to intern with the Tibetan Centre of Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) in Dharamshala, India for my placement. TCHRD is an NGO that aims to expose the human rights violations, experienced in Tibet by the Tibetan people at the hands of the Chinese government, through monitoring and reporting. I am half-way into my internship, and it has been a great experience for me. Upon my arrival, I was given a list of tasks and responsibilities to complete during the placement, along with a warm welcome. I was very excited to start working with this organization and fulfill any project that was asked of me.
TCHRD is an office-based organization with a few field officers, but I would be working in an office with other interns, as well as another student that I came with. The first projects I was tasked with involved updating the organization’s mailing list and email design layout. Despite having a mailing list, they had yet to send regular updates on the human rights situation in Tibet, which would become my responsibility until the end of my internship.
I also had to design the layout for their monthly analyses and translations digest. This was a new publication for the organization, so as a result, I had complete creative freedom for this publication. This entailed the translation of major Tibetan publications published in the Chinese language, as well as relevant social media and published media translations, to inform the public on publications that the Chinese government fails to translate into English. At the moment, the only edition that has been released is the April 2019 publication.
Due to another intern’s early departure, I also had the opportunity to design the layout for the organization’s annual report in English, Tibetan and Chinese. Despite thoroughly enjoying this task, I found it quite challenging due to the language barrier and significant time constraint due to the proposed release date.
I have assisted my colleagues in various posts for the website. This includes posts in relation to the World Press Freedom Day campaign they are running, and uploading the annual reports in English, Tibetan and Chinese to the websites for release.
My most recent project has been to write a special report for the right to fair trial for Tibetans in China. I have begun the research for this; however, this will most likely take up the remainder of my placement as it is intended to be an extensive review and will be translated into Tibetan, in order to inform Tibetans on their rights. I am especially excited for this task as it is a very interesting topic in the international community and will be a formally publicized report on behalf of the organization.
I truly value this placement experience and look forward to the second half of my internship.
International Development Placement 2019 