Kristin Cullison
IOCC-Baltimore

When she's not studying, University of Richmond student Kristin Cullison likes to catch up on all the IOCC news from her laptop computer. Ms. Cullison interned at IOCC's Baltimore headquarters in the summer of 2004.

Baltimore (IOCC) — The field of international development is full of action. One can organize water supply and irrigation programs in Ethiopia, fight the spread of AIDS in Romania and teach women valuable job skills in the West Bank. With 1.2 billion people living in poverty today, the need for action is paramount.

Yet prior to my internship at IOCC Headquarters in Baltimore, I thought of action in international development solely in terms of what occurred in the field. During the course of my internship, however, I came to understand the complex and vital work that occurs behind the scenes of international development. Perhaps I did not spend my summer getting my hands dirty repairing schools in the Republic of Georgia, but I did learn that what happens at headquarters is just as exciting and critical to the goals of development and humanitarian assistance as any field experience.

IOCC has programs in 16 countries throughout the world. Before one person can be assisted by an IOCC program, an enormous amount of work must be completed. Government contracts must be negotiated, projects approved, budgets scrutinized, local relationships built, and much, much more. Multiply that by 16, and you have one busy office!

Yet the work does not stop with programs alone. Areas such as fund-raising, community outreach and communications (like this Web site) are critical to the success of any development organization such as IOCC.

I spent my summer at IOCC delving into many of these areas. In the course of one day, I might write a project profile, send out mass mailings to donors, e-mail government donors and research travel tips for a group trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina. Every day contained something different and new. Every day held the potential for me to learn about so many different countries, languages, cultures, histories and needs. As an International Studies major, I truly felt in my element.

This is not to say that I did not do my fair share of photocopying, scanning and filing. As an intern, such tasks are expected! Yet even with my day-to-day administrative tasks, I always found there was something new to learn. Perhaps sending documents via express courier to Jordan was not the highlight of my day, but it did teach me that sending international mail to non-European countries is enormously expensive and an unavoidable cost when working in development.

Routine as it might have seemed, such information will be of enormous importance to me after I graduate, as I begin my own career in development and hopefully develop my own projects. I have always had big ideas and aspirations to change the world. IOCC Headquarters has given me the practical experience to one day weave my big ideas into functional and effective realities.

My internship experience at IOCC has taught me that the foundations of effective and successful development lay not just in their execution in the field, but with meticulous planning behind the scenes. Behind the smiling faces, changed lives and new hopes of IOCC beneficiaries around the world are the cumulative efforts of an office thousands of miles away in Baltimore. I am honored to have been given the opportunity to be a part of those efforts.

— Kristin
IOCC-Baltimore