This is the second part of a two-part series. Click here to read about the first part of Juetzinia’s experience at FAWE as a Kravis Prize Intern.
Interning with FAWE Zanzibar, though not stressful, was full of surprises that pushed our team to think collaboratively and creatively─which is something I really loved while interning there. Every day was challenging and different, allowing me to pursue leadership opportunities within the chapter.
One particular experience that has impacted me greatly was the 3-day intensive teacher training I developed and co-taught at the Center of Excellence in the village of Kijini. While sitting in the office one day, the head teacher at the Center of Excellence stopped by to ask Khadija Shariff, the national director, for help assessing student mastery of material inside the classroom.
Sitting at the table he welcomed me into the conversation and I offered holding a teacher professional development workshop that would teach Active Participation techniques that allow teachers to check for understanding throughout the lesson. From there, we began brainstorming the format of the workshop so that these teaching techniques would fit both the culture and context of the Center of Excellence. Teaching this workshop was not only a blast, but also taught me a lot about my own positionality coming into new contexts and how to work cross-culturally. I loved working on this project because the teachers were given the space to think through the issues they were having and problem solve creatively. Our role was to act as facilitators. Here, I was able to see the power of education and creativity in raw form, which shows me that transformational nonprofits, like FAWE, must be facilitators in grassroots problem solving, not merely givers of resources.
Interning with FAWE Zanzibar has impacted my life in so many ways. I have gained so much from this experience and it has inspired me to pursue new avenues to learn about education. My time in Zanzibar informed my decision to pursue a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship, and after graduation, I will be teaching in Madrid, Spain under the Global Classrooms initiative as a Fulbright Scholar. I am truly thankful to FAWE and the Kravis Prize organizations, because they not only impact the respective communities they work in, but they provide students like me, with life-changing opportunities.
I will forever miss Zanzibar sunsets, eating Chipsi in Forodhani Gardens and working alongside the amazing FAWE Zanzibar team; however, I will be able to take these lessons anywhere I go. And for that, I am grateful.
Juetzinia Kazmer is a senior at Claremont McKenna College with a dual major in Mathematics and Spanish. She was an intern at the Kravis Prize recipient organization FAWE in 2013. Since 2010, the Kravis Leadership Institute (KLI) has collaborated on Kravis Prize programming, offering subsidized summer internships to students interested in working with Kravis Prize recipient organizations. Follow along on social media with our current #KravisPrizeInterns
