Five migrant/seasonal farm worker college students will be chosen and temporarily relocated to Washington, D.C., for a comprehensive eight-week internship and mentoring program.
The objective is to present young adults with life-changing experiences and connections so they can progress in life, psychologically and passionately.
Rather than spend their summer harvesting crops in the sizzling heat, the selected students will live with host families and be positioned with the Department of Agriculture, the Association of Farm Worker Opportunity Program, the National Education Association, or Farm Worker Justice.
The National Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Association (NMHSA), which manages the internship, is an advocacy group that works at preparing young adults to start college with the ability to succeed.
To be chosen, the farm worker students must be former Migrant/Seasonal Head Start children, be enrolled in college, and come from a family that is farming, or has farmed, the fields of the United States.
The paid internship offers ample chances for networking, on-the-job training, development in both leadership and professional skills, and personal and professional guidance from accomplished experts in Washington, D.C., many of whom were farm workers at some point.
Applications for 2014 must be submitted by 5 p.m. EST on March 31 and can be found at nmshsaonline.org.
For more information about NMSHSA, contact Cleo Rodriguez, Jr., by phone at 202-223-9889 or email at crodriguez@nmshsaonline.org.
This article appears in Mar 20-27, 2014.