The Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation

The Clinton Foundation convenes businesses, governments, NGOs, and individuals to improve global health and wellness, increase opportunity for girls and women, reduce childhood obesity, create economic opportunity and growth, and help communities address the effects of climate change. Because of our work, more than 30,000 American schools are providing kids with healthy food choices in an effort to eradicate childhood obesity; more than 85,000 farmers in Malawi, Rwanda, and Tanzania are benefiting from climate-smart agronomic training, higher yields, and increased market access; more than 33,500 tons of greenhouse gas emissions are being reduced annually across the United States; over 400,000 people have been impacted through market opportunities created by social enterprises in Latin America, the Caribbean, and South Asia; through the independent Clinton Health Access Initiative, 9.9 million people in more than 70 countries have access to CHAI-negotiated prices for HIV/AIDS medications; 85 million people in the U.S. will be reached through strategic health partnerships developed across industry sectors at both the local and national level; and members of the Clinton Global Initiative community have made more than 3,400 Commitments to Action, which have improved the lives of over 430 million people in more than 180 countries.

2015
Mina Barahmi
2014
Jerry Lee


Past Interns

Image by Owen Egan.
2015 Summer Intern: Mina Bahrami, BA International Development Studies

Mina is in her last year of studies at McGill University with a major in International Development Studies and a minor in Social Studies of Medicine. In 2013, she was awarded the Carol and Lloyd Darlington Arts Internship Award for her social work internship in Bududa, Uganda working for the Bududa Learning Center. This summer, Mina will be interning in the Event and Operations unit at the Clinton Global Initiative at the Clinton Foundation in New York City. Originally from the United States, she enjoys traveling and is passionate about learning languages; she is currently pursuing fluency in her fourth language.

Reach Mina mina.bahrami [at] mail.mcgill.ca (here).

***

As a child of immigrant parents who grew up impoverished, I always had a fascination with learning about social justice. It is at McGill University that I was able to expand this interest into a degree in International Development Studies, with a minor in Social Studies of Medicine. Since I started my undergraduate studies in 2012, I have had the opportunity to further my interests in social justice through the wonderful opportunities offered at the Arts Internship Office. Previously, I interned in Uganda at the Bududa Learning Center, working with orphans and vulnerable children in various education programs. This experience on the field opened my eyes to the advantages and disadvantages of development projects on the grass roots level. It was through the generous support of the AIO that I was able to travel to Uganda and spend time working in the village of Bududa.

After my internship in Uganda, I was really interested in experiencing the non-profit world in a larger work setting, ideally in one of the many headquarters positioned in large cities across the globe. I wanted to see how projects were carried out and monitored from a large office and although I have had previous experience working in offices, a large professional office was an environment I had not been exposed to. The Clinton Foundation has a very well-run and competitive internship program which focuses not only on work experience, but also on professional development. After doing a bit of research, I found that I was very interested in the work that the Clinton Foundation was doing, and all of its accomplishments since it was established over ten years ago.  

A subset of the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), is a leading organization in the non-profit sector that brings together leaders from large corporations, governments, and non-profits to solve today’s most pressing issues. It has 9 focus “tracks”, which range from education to global health. CGI partners with member organizations in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors to facilitate projects in various countries. To this day, CGI has reached over 30 million people with its projects in more than 100 countries.

As an Event Logistics intern, I was responsible for helping to facilitate and plan the Annual Meeting, an event which brings all member organizations, heads of state, and other big players to New York City to discuss today’s most pressing issues. The Annual Meeting is the most important event of the year, and I had the opportunity to work each day of the event. I worked alongside my team to ensure that all production logistics, catering, hotel, and program logistics were carried out.

The biggest highlight of my internship was being given the opportunity to have a personal meeting with the CEO of the Clinton Foundation, Donna Shalala. She had previously served as the Secretary for Health and Human Services under the Clinton Administration and as president in multiple universities. Meeting with her was a wonderful opportunity and hearing her career advice was an invaluable experience.  

There are certain challenges associated with working in a large non-profit. First, I was very limited to the department in which I was working. CGI runs many projects which I was interested in working in, but unfortunately the internship is set up so that each intern is only responsible for the work in their respective department. Therefore, it is also difficult to have communication between departments in such a large organization. I did not have the opportunity to be involved in their work on the Global Health team, although it is a topic I am very interested in. However, everyone at the Clinton Global Initiative is very willing to answer questions and speak with each intern and I took the opportunity to speak with many leaders in other teams that I was interested in working with.  

Fortunately, I was able to use this internship experience as an educational experience to add to my undergraduate degree. I will be receiving credits for this internship, and am writing a paper on the Clinton Foundation’s involvement in the fight against HIV/AIDS with supervision from Professor Sarah Moser in the department of Geography.  

This internship was a once in a lifetime opportunity to work with experienced like-minded individuals in the non-profit sector. It allowed me to learn more about a career in non-profit management, and has encouraged me to keep pursuing work in the non-profit sector.

Mina shaking hands with President Bill Clinton at the Annual CGI Meeting.


Image by Owen Egan.
2014 Summer Intern: Jerry Lee, BSc Physiology

Jerry is in her third year at McGill, majoring in Physiology with a minor in Economics. She has interned at the Institute for Health and Social Policy for two consecutive terms and has worked for the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. This summer, Jerry will be interning at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) organizing the annual CGI University conference, which brings together youth leaders, philanthropists, leading CEOs, and laureates to discuss innovative solutions to pressing global challenges.

Reach Jerry goh.lee [at] mail.mcgill.ca (here).

***

Jerry Lee is a fourth-year student at McGill, majoring in Physiology with a minor in Economics.  Through her previous internship at the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy, she developed an interest in global health and policy-making. In her third year, she worked as an assistant to the editor of the 2013 World Happiness Report, published by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

To further pursue her passion in health policy, she interned at the Clinton Foundation this past summer as a Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) University intern. The Clinton Foundation facilitates a multi-sector network among leading CEOs, philanthropists, heads of state, and many other influential figures to solve the most pressing global challenges as education, poverty, health, and environment.

At the Foundation, Jerry’s roles included summarizing over 250 global project descriptions to be featured on the CGI website; analyzing data of 10,000 student applications and drafting a statistics report; and recruiting speakers for the annual CGI conference.

Using this valuable internship as a steppingstone, Jerry will continue to pursue a career in policy-making to develop more efficient and systematic policy frameworks for solving global health issues. This internship could not have been possible without the help from the Internship Offices Network and the generous donation from Dr. Patrick and Mrs. Lee-Sen Chiang.

Jerry shaking hands with Former President Bill Clinton.

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