The North Carolina Justice Center seeks a Doctoral Policy Intern to support research, policy analysis, and advocacy campaign work during the summer of 2018, as part of the Center’s Workers’ Rights project.
The Justice Center invites applications for a substantive, policy-oriented internship that supports Workers’ Rights Project issue campaigns to raise the minimum wage, provide sick and family leave to workers, and improve the state’s unemployment insurance programs.
Although the intern’s specific work would depend to some degree on his or her interests and skills, the Justice Center is particularly seeking someone to conduct contemporary ethnographic research and analysis among the populations directly affected by the policy areas addressed in our campaigns. Specifically, the intern would be responsible for interviewing directly affected individuals, analyzing how these stories fit together in a coherent narrative, and finding compelling ways of communicating them to the broader public. In the latter role, our communications staff will train the intern to help directly affected individuals tell their own story across different media platforms, including op-eds, social media, and especially film. Although not required, experience with videography and documentary develop will be given special preference.
The Justice Center is North Carolina’s leading private, nonprofit, anti-poverty advocacy organization. To accomplish our mission, we use an array of different strategies, including research, communications, community engagement, litigation, and legislative advocacy. Internships at the Justice Center are substantive and are intended to expose interns to the nature of issue-oriented policy advocacy across the range of strategies we use. In this case, the Doctoral Policy Intern will learn the ways in which different types of research can be incorporated into issue campaigns, while experiencing first-hand the broader world of nonprofit advocacy, state politics, and legislative decision-making.
Primary Responsibilities and Essential Functions May Include
- Collecting stories from directly affected individuals, especially those in low-income communities of color, through interviews or other methods.
- Analyzing those stories and combining them into coherent narratives that support our campaign goals.
- Presenting individual stories and collective narratives in the most effective manner, including written reports, social media, blog posts, infographics, and video clips. If the intern has documentary skills, this will involve the creation of a 4-5 minute documentary.
- Working with interviewees on telling their own stories, including the preparation of op-eds, letters to the editor, and video.
- Editing video of new and existing interviews.
- Participating in campaign planning discussions and project staff meetings.
The internship will require limited work on nights and weekend and use of a car for limited travel.
To Apply
Follow the application instructions on the VH@Duke Internship Program page.
