Kiya getting the hang of the pace of things

It was a slow start but I`m getting the hang of the pace of things. My internship is at the Western Cape Network onViolence Against Women where the goal is to education and advocate for the rights of women in South Africa. For the past two weeks or so I have been fairly involved at my internship. My first assignment was to contact hundreds of organizations to confirm their partnership with the Network. It allowed me to be the face of the organization which I really appreciated. My current assignment is in their communication department. I am currently helping update and rebuild the public web page. I have been reading articles on HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention that have been quite interesting. There is an increase in HIV/AIDS infections among teenage girls in South Africa. The cause of this is mainly from older men. Most of these younger girls are exchanging intercourse for money in order to help support their guardians at home and provide themselves with the basic necessities. The government is currently assisting families with low income or single parent homes to prevent this from happening.

The people at my internship are really sweet and inclusive. We just received another intern who is also from America. The two of us are working closely together to start updating the Network`s database and website. In addition to my job description, I also was able to attend a bill hearing that discussed gender based issues. One topic that stood out to me was how to word laws concerning the LGBTI community. They focused a lot on making that community feel comfortable and how to include them into laws such as protection laws that usually only apply for the born gender of individuals. They were discussing how these laws that are already in place have been affecting the LBGTI community and what should be done to change them.