Community Alliance for Global Justice Internships

To apply for an internship, please send an email to CAGJ, with short answers to the following questions.  Students are welcome to apply for one or more quarters for credit.  Applicants who are not students can apply at any time. Please  indicate which of the below internships you are interested in.
-Why are you interested in an internship with CAGJ?
-What are your current life goals?
-Are there specific skills you want to use?
-Are there specific skills you want to develop?
Thank you!

All internships require a weekly commitment of a minimum of 3 – 5 hours. We seek persons who possess strong communication and organizational skills, who are enthusiastic about CAGJ’s mission, who are dependable, and follow-up without constant supervision.  Internships are unpaid.

Contact info:
contact_us@seattleglobaljustice.org
www.seattleglobaljustice.org
206.405.4600

Organizational Internships

Social Media Intern
Assist in developing and implementing a social media strategy utilizing CAGJ’s Facebook, Twitter, blog accounts , website, video ETC!  Intern will help core CAGJ activists to maintain and update CAGJ’s WordPress based website.  Developing a training and strategy for interfacing with CAGJ’s new online database may also be a component of this internship.

Membership Development Intern
CAGJ is a volunteer run organization that believes in the importance of leadership development. The aim of membership development is to recruit, involve, retain and build the leadership of CAGJ volunteers. The Membership Development interns work with the Director and Program Co-Chairs to achieve these goals, and maintains and improves membership and outreach systems.

An intern who is able to work with CAGJ for more than one quarter is preferred, but not required, for this position.

Fundraising Intern
Assist the Executive Director and fundraising team to help ensure CAGJ’s continued financial health.  Interns may assist in grant research and writing, special events planning, monthly sustainership promotion, special gifts planning and activities to promote membership in CAGJ.   This is an excellent opportunity for anyone seeking employment or involvement in the non-profit sector.

SLEE Internships

CAGJ’s 2013 SLEE Dinner will take place September 7th, and we need a team of interns to contribute to the vision and make it even more spectacular than past dinners!

Dessert and Silent Auctions Coordinators: Coordinate a group of volunteers to do outreach to supportive contacts for dessert and silent auction donations.  April through June – Silent Auction. June through September – Dessert Auction.

Publicity Coordinator: Coordinate a group of volunteers to create promotional materials and conduct outreach to our co-sponsors to publicize the event. May through September.

Silent Auction Outreach: Email, and follow-up with businesses and CAGJ members to put together super sexy silent auction packages that will be up for bid at our silent auction. Need to be able to make day-time calls. Starts in April.

Food & Farm Outreach: Contact the many farmers, fisherfolks, creameries, wineries, breweries & others who support CAGJ with their amazing goods to see if they can help out this year. Starts in April or May.

Table Captain Outreach: This essential role follows up with our valued CAGJ membership requesting that they become Table Captains to provide an extra level of financial support at our dinner. You will be provided with all the contacts and outreach materials you need!  Start in April or May.

Co-Sponsor Outreach: Contact businesses and nonprofits to ask for their assistance promoting our event. Starts in June.

Dessert Auction Outreach: Solicit 40 yummylicious desserts for the dessert auction that is always a big hit during SLEE. Starts in July.

Food Service Coordinator: Calling all waiters! Do you have food service experience and can’t wait to use it for an incredibly worthy cause? We need someone to coordinate all our volunteer servers for the night of our dinner, which also requires doing an orientation with them within 2 weeks prior to the event. You will be asked to contact volunteers one month before – in August. We will find the bodies!

AGRA Watch Internships

Background: AGRA Watch is a grassroots, Seattle-based project of Community Alliance for Global Justice that challenges the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s problematic agricultural development programs in Africa, including the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). In contrast, AGRA Watch supports African-initiated programs rooted in agroecological and indigenous farming practices, social equity, and food sovereignty – the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture systems.

The Gates Foundation and AGRA claim to be “pro-poor” and “pro-environment,” but their approach is closely aligned with the profit-driven agendas of transnational corporations such as Monsanto, as well as foreign policy actors like USAID. These programs take advantage of global food and climate crises to promote the high-tech, market-based, industrial model of agricultural development pioneered by the first Green Revolution, with the addition of GMOs. The Green Revolution model has been ecologically and socially devastating, as it has degraded the environment and forced millions of indigenous peoples and subsistence farmers, the majority of them women, off their land into urban slums. In spite of short-term increases in crop yields, the number of hungry people worldwide has increased dramatically. The solution to hunger and poverty will not be found in a new Green Revolution linked to biotechnology and big agribusiness.

African communities, farmers, consumers, and civil society organizations already have locally-adapted solutions to the problems they face. AGRA Watch works in solidarity with these groups to resist undemocratic, unaccountable projects pushed from the outside and to build food systems based on sustainability, community and health.

AGRA Watch Research Internship
Interns will work as a core member of the AGRA Watch committee to conduct activist research to challenge the problematic agricultural development model being pushed by the Gates Foundation while building the movement for food sovereignty in the US and Africa. This position will receive considerable support from the committee and its co-chairs, but requires someone self-directed who is able to work both independently and collaboratively.  We are are looking for senior students or graduate students in African Studies, Economics, Political Science, Anthropology, Sustainable Development etc.

Suggested availability:   5– 8 hours/week, two quarters.  It is hard to dig deeply into research in less than two quarters.

AGRA Watch Conference Internship
Work as assistant to the chair of the conference planning sub-committee to organize a March 2013 international conference in Seattle. This conference will serve as a local and international forum to challenge the problematic agricultural development model being pushed by the Gates Foundation while building the movement for food sovereignty in the US, Africa, and around the world. Interns will be responsible for coordinating and tracking the activities of the committee.

Duties may include convening and attending meetings, taking notes and posting them to relevant listservs, following up on task assignments to ensure progress, establishing timelines, coordinating volunteers, liaising with speakers, soliciting co-sponsorships, maintaining the budget, working with local and national ally organizations, publicity work, and assisting in every aspect of event planning. Fall interns will be additionally responsible for tasks specific to logistical support for the the conference.  Minimum two quarter commitment required minimum 8 hours/week up to 15 hours/week..  Must be able to attend evening meetings.

AGRA Watch Organizer and Support Internship
Students will work as a core member of AGRA Watch to challenge the problematic agricultural development model being pushed by the Gates Foundation while building the movement for food sovereignty in the US and Africa. Interns will play an active role in coordinating and tracking the activities of the committee. Tasks may include convening and attending meetings, taking notes and posting them to relevant listservs, following up on task assignments to ensure progress, establishing timelines, coordinating volunteers, liaising with speakers, soliciting co-sponsorships, researching venues, maintaining the budget, working with local and national partner organizations, publicity work and outreach, and assisting in every aspect of event planning. This position will receive considerable support from the committee and its co-chairs, but requires someone self-directed who is able to work both independently and collaboratively.

Food Justice Project Internships

The Food Justice Project is another of CAGJ’s primary programs.  Through community education, political action, and anti-oppressive organizing and community-building, CAGJ’s Food Justice Project seeks to challenge and transform the globalized, industrial, corporate-driven food system and promote existing alternatives as we join the global struggle for food sovereignty for all.

FJP coordinates research, organizes monthly Teach-Outs, work-parties and visits to local farms and other key food sites, coordinates Educate for Action workshops on food politics, organizes events and actions around our Solidarity Campaigns aimed at building the movement for food justice and sovereignty. We also work to get our great new publication out into the world, the 2nd edition of “Our Food, Our Right: Recipes for Food Justice“.

Main intern projects may include:

• Organizing Teach-Outs with pre- and post- event tasks
• Outreach for Teach-Outs, Educate for Action workshops, Our Food, Out Right, or meetings
• Acting as a point person for a Solidarity Campaign
• Updating the webpage, writing email alerts and correspondence, and researching new materials
• Prepping for meetings and representing CAGJ at events in the community

The intern will work with a team of CAGJ activists and directly with the two project co-chairs (who are also volunteers).  Some office hours may be required, and the ability to work well independently and remotely will also be very important.  In general, the CAGJ work environment is casual and friendly, but expects accountability and dependability from its volunteers to get things done! CAGJ is a volunteer run organization with one full-time staff.  Interns play critical roles within and outside of the organization.

To apply, please read more about FJP’s work, and select one that will be the focus of your internship:

• Teach-outs
• Our Food, Our Right
• Educate for Action
• Solidarity Campaigns

Send a resume and cover letter outlining why you’re interested in this specific area of work and what you’d like to contribute to: fjp@seattleglobaljustice.org