Interning with Ecomingling helped me achieve academic, career, and personal goals. Before the start of my internship, I outlined some of the goals I had hoped to accomplish throughout the course of the summer. These goals included enhancing my environmental knowledge, constructing a clearer understanding of the types of organizations and occupations that exist in the environmental sector, and honing my written and verbal communication skills. I feel proud and grateful to have satisfied each of these goals throughout the course of my internship!
My internship definitely allowed me to clarify my career interests. As previously stated, one of my pre-defined goals was to broaden my understanding of the environmental field as a whole. Ecomingling’s central project currently is the establishment and development of Israel’s first and only anti-plastic coalition, consisting of 10 Israeli NGOs, organizations, and businesses. Forming relationships with and learning about each of these members furthered my understanding of the environmental sector as a whole, and thus, helped me to clarify potential career interests.
Each of these coalition members are vital to the well-being and growth of the coalition as a whole. Therefore, a lot of my internship duties required me to be in communication with each of these coalition members. Through this communication, I spoke with various environmental leaders in Israel and was able to establish professional relationships with many interesting people and organizations. In addition to communicating with the coalition board members, I also connected with the various social media campaign managers of each coalition member organization. The relationships I formed with the other social media campaign managers taught me a lot- not only about social media management, but also about the different moving pieces of the entire environmental sector in Israel!
Just a couple days ago, I was lucky enough to virtually meet with an incoming intern who will take over my role with Ecomingling. Speaking with him felt very significant because I conceptualized and verbalized everything that I learned this summer. After explaining the general internship duties, I also gave him a small piece of advice: ensure that you are genuinely interested in the “why” of Ecomingling. I explained to him that I believed my internship was so successful because I cared deeply about the “why” of Ecomingling- its mission to accelerate sustainability across the globe. I told him that being empowered by the larger picture propelled me in my work and motivated me to do it well. He agreed with me and explained that he felt the same way, which made me feel both comfortable and excited to leave my job in the hands of such a capable and enthusiastic newcomer.
I am very proud of so much of the work I accomplished this summer: creating Facebook pages, drafting and publishing thoughtful and interesting posts, researching how differing national plastic policies affect those nations’ marine debris, researching where Ecomingling should expand internationally, communicating well and learning from various individuals in the environmental sector, establishing positive relationships with other Ecomingling employees, and so much more. However, I am most proud of one thing: working for an organization that helps make the world a better place. Ecomingling strives to make the earth sustainable and healthy for all living things and I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to contribute to their mission.
Here is an image of a post I made to a Facebook group with over 270,000 people. It received 25 comments!
Here is an image of the spreadsheet I use to plan out the posts I make to Facebook.
Click here for a link to the Ecomingling facebook page!
Click here for a link to the Israeli Plastic Pollution Prevention Coalition Facebook page, which is the coalition created and developed by Ecomingling!