BLOG - http://www.marielateresto.blogspot.com/ (in french)

In the search of the meaning of my life and as a response to my increasing interest for alternatives to consumption, for a true respect of Life on an everyday basis, coherence with my ideals, and authentic simplicity, I chose to get involved with The Earth Being Association. I am a partner since January and it feels really good.

In the context of my studies, everyday closer to the so called "work reality" which is making me nervous, I was happy to discover a different path... that actually happenned to be better...! Indeed, discussing with Yan, founding-member of The Earth Being and good friend of mine, we thought of the opportunity for me to do an internship in the association... which quickly became reality.

Writing this article, I intend to present to you my vision of this experience, which has already started a while ago, and to announce my intentions, for transparency reasons regarding the association members. I will expose the modalities of realization of this internship, my personal objectives, and, finally, different opportunities for other internships at The Earth Being.

My internship at The Earth Being

In the course of my study program (Baccalauréat en Animation et recherche culturelles at UQAM) (to read my personal definition of "Animation culturelle" (in french only) or to discover this study field, click here ), student must realize a 600 hours internship. Those hours, normally spreaded on the whole last year of the diploma, must all be realized in the same organization. As I had already planned a student exchange for this last school year, I thought it could be possible to split the internship time in two phases - one taking place locally ; the other, from outside - allowing The Earth Being to benefit from this prolonged stay in a foreign country.

Indeed, I am actually intern at The Earth Being since the beginning of June in Montreal, and I will be heading forward from Porto Alegre - Brazil starting from August. With the intentions of optimizing my actions in those two different contexts, I defined particular objectives for each of them.

My personal objectives

For the first period (in Montreal), my objectives are directly related to the "action" aspect of The Earth Being, whereas the second (in Porto Alegre) will be oriented towards the development of the international aspect of the association, and is more theoretical, relational and/or virtual related. This last orientation will eventually contribute the development of the Contact Center.

My three main personal objectives are :

• Facilitation (group moderation), coordination and organization on the local scene (see Feed-back des membres(french only) for details on what has been done)
• Translate the website to portuguese
• Describe and share information on alternative activities and projects going on in Brazil by the means of articles to be published on the Web site and in the idea of the constitution of the Contact Center.

The members' part

Realizing an internship is a very special opportunity to experience learning in a structured organization : the intern is usually supported by professionals of his study field which can advise and guide him/her in the discovery of this field realities. In the case of The Earth Being, which is still a young organization, there is no such established structure to support the intern, nor expertise from the cultural (animation culturelle) field...

Of course, I was fully aware of this fact when I jumped in : I am consequently completely autonomous in this internship process, and I consider this quality as an incredible opportunity to learn to work in an autonomous manner, to auto-criticise myself and to learn from my mistakes. However, in an association whose members are the essence, whose energy is spent to progress in the direction of the members and the collectivity objectives, it is essential for someone who spends efforts contributing to this advancement to receive feed-back from other members to make sure to stay in the desired path. That is why I ask your participation, dear members, so that you share with me your opinions, suggestions, constructing critiques, and comments, with the intention to cooperate. Let's share our ideas in a way that I can lead my actions respecting your ideas and for the collective sake.

To do so, as I said at the beginning of this article, I created a blog so that we will be able to communicate regularly, members and intern, in spite of the distance, so that our visions keep synchronized. I will keep note of my actions, established contacts, ideas to explore, opportunities for The Earth Being, etc. Visit it regularly and leave comments, I appreciate it !
http://www.marielateresto.blogspot.com/

Internship possibilities at The Earth Being

As you may have noticed, The Earth Being represents a special opportunity to realize an extraordinary internship, where autonomy, creativity, and the possibilities are endless. Students or working people from any field are invited to come and learn, experiment and share with us ! Welcome to anyone who is interested ! Contact us!

For any question or comment concerning the internship or to contact me! MarieEve ou marie_eve@lateresto.org
Marie Eve