Similar to many students at MSFS, Arno Gasteiger (’14), a student from Austria, decided to spend the summer after his first year in an international location. Gasteiger returned to Vietnam, a country that had captured his interest when he visited previously.
In Vietnam, Gasteiger interned in Ho Chi Minh City and worked with a program called Better Work Vietnam. This program “is a partnership between the International Labor Organization and the International Finance Corporation, the private sector branch of the World Bank,” he said.
While working at Better Work Vietnam, Gasteiger’s primary responsibilities were outreach-oriented. “The program has a lot of data and a lot of reports that are pretty academic,” he explained. “I helped them to boil down information into a leaflet and distribute it to factories and buyers. The idea was to come up with something that looks good. The leaflet needed to be short and concise to sell the program to factories and buyers. In addition, I also conducted interviews with workers in factories.”
With the dynamic program and intersection between multiple organizations and sectors, Gasteiger reflected on his experiences in Vietnam and how it affected his plans for the future. “It’s a job I’d like to have,” he said. “I like that it’s a partnership between international organizations, the private sector, and a national government. Being a part of it helped me realize that I want to work in that intersection and helped me to understand how businesses can improve livelihoods and standards of living in developing countries.”
While Gasteiger has no trouble describing the ins and outs of his work in Vietnam, he could only equivocate when asked to choose a favorite Vietnamese food, a tough question to answer. He emphasized “the classics pho and bun bo” as well as “a lot of other Vietnamese dishes you don’t get in the West. The best might be bo kho, which is a beef stew.”
Another international student who took the opportunity to intern abroad this summer was Ana Calvo (’14) from Spain. Calvo worked for Global Giving in the Philippines alongside classmate Sandra Dickison (’14).
Calvo chose Global Giving because it allowed her to combine her interests. “I didn’t have any background with development, so for me it was really important to be in the field,” she said. “Also, I took the practical evaluation class last year and wanted to do something related. Global Giving was the best internship in terms of combining those two interests.” Calvo shared her main goal from the internship, which was “to make sure the funds Global Giving was providing were going to the right place, and that the NGOs were implementing projects as reported.”
Other responsibilities included providing “support and technical assistance to help them with the fundraising process through Global Giving’s web site in addition to hosting workshops for prospective organizations on online fundraising and how to join Global Giving,” Calvo said with enthusiasm. “Every three days we were changing locations. Sometimes we took a flight, and a ferry, and a motorbike, and hiked until we reached the projects we were supposed to visit. The projects were in sustainable agriculture, education, women’s empowerment issues, and other sectors of development.”
Calvo admits that while every site visit was exciting, some projects stood out above the rest. “We went to see a project on a remote island called Bohol, to a community with about 20 people. It was such an amazing day; the farmers showed us around their projects and shared fresh coconut milk with us. The whole community was so welcoming; they gave us lunch, they even had children there to sing for us.”
Beyond Gasteiger and Calvo, many other MSFS students also interned at international locations including The Hague Institute for Global Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, U.S. Foreign Commercial Service in New Delhi, India, Advocacy Project in Kampala, Uganda, and Millenium Challenge Corporation in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.