Hello from Paris! I hope that everyone’s summers have been fantastic; I cannot wait to hear about all of them when we are back at Conn. This summer I have been in Paris, France. I cannot believe how fast the time has gone by and that I am heading back to the states in a few short weeks. This summer has been a whirlwind, filled with challenges and growth, but has been a truly amazing experience.
I started off the summer working at Reid Hall, which is the global center here in Paris run by Columbia University. Reid Hall hosts several study abroad programs, giving them a place to hold their classes as well as hosting international scholars throughout the year. In the office, there was constantly planning for events and contacting scholars regarding their work. At Reid Hall, I worked on making their center more visible to the greater community. I was originally supposed to work on a project (that ended up falling through) regarding gender-based violence. Although this project fell through, I was able to listen to several lectures that had previously been held at the center and became deeply interested in the topic of violence against women. Through a connection at Reid Hall, I found La Maison des Femmes, which I am currently working at now, for the remaining two weeks of my internship.
La Maison des Femmes is a center in Saint-Denis, which is right outside of Paris, that welcomes all women who are vulnerable to or have been victims of violence. Opened in July of 2016, the team of women here hopes to create a concrete and pragmatic response to three main focuses. The three areas that the center focuses on are domestic violence, family planning, and female genital mutilation. The team is consistent of psychologists, gynecologists, psychiatrists, osteopaths, family planning councilors, etc. It has been a really great experience getting to work here and observe how this unique and important center is. I am looking forward to finishing up these last few weeks at my internship and getting to be more involved with the process of the functioning of the house! See you all very soon!
