Internship Location: Madison, WI
Organization Type: Local Government
Policy Areas: Social Justice
This past semester, I worked as an intern with the City of Madison’s Department of Civil Rights’ Racial Equity and Social Justice Division. The Division is working to create an equity and social justice ordinance for the City of Madison. My role as an intern was to research different ordinances on racial equity and compare them. While researching, I had to focus on the programs offered and described in each city’s ordinance, their structures for holding accountability in each department, staffing, and how they access their scope of work. While researching each city’s racial equity ordinance, I took notes on the strengths of each ordinance and how Madison could benefit from enacting a similar ordinance. After completing my research, I set up a meeting with the San Francisco Office of Racial Equity to discuss their ordinance. I organized an outline and presentation for the meeting, which included creating a set of questions around the creation and implementation of their ordinance. This was important to know because the goal of my internship was to work to create a similar ordinance that complemented the City of Madison, Department of Civil Rights, and Racial Equity and Social Justice Division’s mission statements. During my time as an intern, I learned how to better communicate and to see both the big picture and the small details. I learned that while it is important to think of the end goals, it is better to focus on the steps in between to reach the end goal. These are some of the key lessons I will take from my internship and from my future career as a physician and policymaker. I have learned to conduct proper research and use my findings to prepare for professional meetings in order to improve our communities.