During the 2019/2020 biennium, the UNEP Cartagena Convention Secretariat has been fortunate to welcome 8 young, bright minds to its Internship Programme. Hailing from Aruba, China, France, India, Jamaica, Norway and the United Kingdom, these university graduates are connected by their shared interest in environmental science and their desire to make meaningful contributions to sustainable development at all levels. Diving into the broad portfolio of marine environmental issues covered by the Wider Caribbean’s Cartagena Convention, the interns engaged in and contributed to the work of several ongoing activities and projects (such as the GEF IWEco Project), while simultaneously honing their skills as young professionals and the voices of positive change for environmental conservation.
Jessica Cole (United Kingdom) was one of the last interns to anchor her bags on the shores of Kingston, Jamaica, home of the Cartagena Convention Secretariat, and the last to journey home. A graduate of the University of Sussex and Imperial College of London, she pursued postgraduate studies in Environmental Conservation/Ecological Applications at the latter and enjoys sharing her ideas on environmental sustainability issues on her blog.
Before she left the island, Jessica shared her feedback with us on her internship experience at the UNEP Cartagena Convention, as well as, a few thoughts on the theme for International Youth Day 2020 (Youth Engagement for Global Action):
Q: Why did you choose to pursue an internship at the UNEP Cartagena Convention Secretariat?
A: I chose to pursue an internship with UNEP as I have always hoped to work in an influential international organisation such as this. I was offered another internship in the Germany Duty Station but I knew that the work of the Caribbean Environment Programme was closer to what I hope to be doing in the future.
Q: To what specific area were you assigned and what did your overall tasks involve?
A: My internship was with the Communication, Education, Training, and Public Awareness Sub-Programme, so I was working on building new communications products and supporting the other communications outputs of the Secretariat. This has given me a greater understanding of what is required of an organisation such as this, and despite being in the CETA Sub-Programme I learned a lot about the other many other focus areas of CEP as well.
Q: What did you learn from the internship experience?
A: I gained so much experience and knowledge through osmosis – just existing in the same space as my CEP colleagues imbued me with a lot of invaluable experience.
I am not a communication expert – I am an ecologist who enjoys knowledge-sharing and being creative. I am grateful to the Secretariat for seeing my potential and allowing me to develop these skills, and for allowing me creative freedom on the projects I worked on. I was also afforded a number of opportunities to chair meetings and otherwise work on my public speaking which are valuable skills I have been able to improve during my time here. As a result of this internship, I have a better understanding of the career path I wish to take from here, hopefully utilising these improved communication skills in a more environmental programme implementation role.
In the circumstances (COVID-19 and working from home), I couldn’t have hoped for a better internship experience – everyone at the Secretariat is so lovely and genuinely cares about making the time a rewarding experience for you. I can wholeheartedly encourage anyone who is considering an internship at CEP to do so, you will not regret it. Besides, who can say ‘no’ to Jamaica?
Q: As you know, International Youth Day will be celebrated on August 12 to recognize and mainstream young peoples’ voices, actions and initiatives, as well as their meaningful, universal and equitable engagement. Young people regularly state that their voices are not sufficiently heard and that their engagement in various processes is still lacking. The aim of IYD 2020 therefore is to shed light on the need to enable the engagement of youth by making local, national and global institutions more inclusive for the purpose of strengthening their capacity (and relevance) to achieve global action. As a young professional, and a young ecologist, what is your view on the importance of youth involvement in national, regional and global issues?
A: Young people are the future. To exclude us from being involved in national, regional, and global issues is to hinder development that benefits everyone. The policies and actions put in place today will impact the world for years to come. If youth are left out of these conversations, we will be short changed.
Young people feel increasingly disenfranchised from most political, societal, and capitalist structures. It is not that we don’t care about change, it is often that we feel the structures in place do not allow for effective change – so they aren’t worth engaging with. If you look at any protest, any online movement the core participants are young people – we care a lot. These issues will directly affect us, in our lifetimes. These problems are no longer some far-off future for someone else to worry about, and we know this. In very real time, we are seeing the world around us crumble while the people in charge are seemingly unwilling to do something or intent on driving it to destruction either through negligence or malice.
It is hard to see what is going on in the world and remain motivated and hopeful; it is even harder when the youth voices are discounted as being ‘whiny millennials’ – Greta Thunberg, for example. It is vitally important that those in positions of power take active steps to engage and enthuse young people to engage in these decisions. Voter turnout among 18-24-year olds is consistently very low, but when we have political candidates that speak to their values and listen to what they want these numbers go way up. If the doors are open, people will walk through them.
Connect with Jessica on LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/jessica-lee-cole/) to get updates on her post-internship work:
Keep visiting this page for more feedback from our past interns.
