Week 11: Coming to an End
The first thing on my list this week was finishing my Salesforce proposal which was due on Friday. As I was finishing my editing, however, I was given another Salesforce item to work on. This time it was an application for additional licenses from Salesforce. These licenses will allow IBJ to completely re-organize and re-integrate all of its programs, creating a single, comprehensive platform for the entire organization.
Salesforce licenses will allow IBJ lawyers to organize and manage their cases, IBJ offices to compile and access grant information, and a platform for every member of IBJ to access updates on new initiatives. With all of this information in one place, IBJ will be able to operate more efficiently and will have instant access to progress reports and statistics that can be used in future grants and updates. The ultimate goal is to allow IBJ to provide legal representation and rights awareness to as many people as possible. This will allow IBJ to continue to expand to new countries and reinvigorate its fight against torture and judicial corruption.
After working on both Salesforce items for a couple of days I finished both the application and the request for new licenses three days before the deadline. After passing it around the office, it was approved and finally submitted to Salesforce for consideration. Whenever anyone in the office finishes a proposal there is always a round of congratulations and applause. Even if you had nothing to do with the finished product you still feel as if you helped to create it simply by working at IBJ. Everyone here is extremely proud of all of the work that this office accomplishes and no matter what, everyone feels like part of the team. This is what I will miss the most about working here. I have never worked with a group of such dedicated, caring, and friendly people in my life. Although the office is made up of people who live all around the world and come from all walks of life, we are all connected by our desire to protect the basic legal rights and dignity that belong to every human being.
Now that Salesforce was submitted, I turned my focus to a new proposal for KIOS. The focus of this project will be the countries of India, Sri Lanka, and Nepal but might also focus on Afghanistan as well. The idea here is to expand on IBJ’s success in India by copying the programs in India and applying them to other countries in the region. IBJ has created a lot of training tools and educational resources for use in India including a Defender Resource Manual that has been officially adopted for training purposes in India. This KIOS proposal would both allow for an expansion of our program in India and fund the creation of new defender manuals and training sessions in Sri Lanka and Nepal. If successful, IBJ will be able to begin the foundations of two new country programs that could take off and expand IBJ’s reach across the world.
With the limited time that I had last week, I was able to finish the background research on the KIOS Foundation and start planning out some of the questions for the application. Next week, as I finish my internship, I will do further research on the countries involved and begin writing. Hopefully, I will be able to finish a full draft of the proposal before my last day on August 5th.
At the end of this week, I began what was my last weekend in Geneva. Although I am still here for another week I will be in Poland next weekend visiting Krakow and Auschwitz before I fly back to Williamsburg on August 9th. In order to save money I stayed around Geneva this weekend and visited many of the areas that I had not been since my first weekend here. I went down by the lake and walked through the many parks and preserves in the area, I went past the UN one last time, and crossed the Rhone River to go to Old Town. It was a very pleasant experience although it was a little chaotic in some places because the entire area is prepping for a Swiss National Holiday on Monday. Finally, I decided to follow the Rhone River to see where it took me. After about forty-five minutes I had left the city and entered a very nice forest path bordering the water. The water here never ceases to amaze me, it seems so clean and blue that I almost cannot believe that this body of water borders a major city. After walking for around an hour and a half I came to a large bridge so I hiked up the slopes to a staircase and walked across. I was greeted by a beautiful view of the area surrounding Geneva. This will probably be my last scenic view of Switzerland before I go but it did not disappoint.
