The Easter Egg Hunt
I've been interning at IDEA for a little over a month now, and I'm starting to feel like I've landed the best summer legal internship ever. The amazing colleagues, picturesque office, and intellectually stimulating work all make it an amazing experience. On top of that, I've got diplomatic status (and immunity) and all the perks that come with it, like bypassing the interminable security lines at the airport when I visit my UK friends. IDEA also values our team members' personal lives, for instance, our Hague base allows employees to work remotely two days a week. Although most employees come in anyway, in the Netherlands, kids get out of school early on Wednesdays, so those with children usually work from home then. This is just one example of how much IDEA cares about its work with other countries, democracies, and citizens around the world, as well as our own staff. It's a fantastic place to work, and this week I discovered, to no one's surprise, that Tuscany is as well.
I had the pleasure of visiting my boyfriend, Federico’s parents at their new house in Forte Dei Marmi. The city’s name means “fort of the marbles” and everything, even the sidewalk curbs, were marble. I worked remotely from the patio, with a beautiful view of the Alps and the beach, and prepared my final touches for a civic education proposal presentation that our intern team has been dedicatedly working on for several weeks. As a brief origin story, our leadership is contemplating a project focused on civic education, initially targeting our eastern partnership countries with the potential to expand globally. Unlike our constitution drafting initiatives, this project aims to educate citizens in countries with established constitutions about the power these documents grant them. By translating the power dynamic between government officials and citizens in democratic societies, we can address the concerning decline in democracy worldwide. You might already be able to tell that I’ve grown incredibly attached to the mission.
Rather than reinvent the wheel and starting from scratch, the intern trio gathered case studies of current initiatives with similar goals from around the world. We focused on target audiences, methods, tools, strategies, effectiveness, and obstacles of the initiatives. We’ve basically been on an intellectual Easter egg hunt, and since I had a head start, I found over twenty “eggs” and was even named the “Quarterback” of the project by Jared and Kirby. One particularly innovative discovery was Democracy 4, a video game where players assume the role of a government leader, such as a President or Prime Minister and make policy decisions to manage their country’s economy, society, and political stability. Users can transform the country as they see fit but must retain enough popularity to get reelected. I’m definitely going to find some time this summer to play.
In the spirit of democracy, Jared and Kirby elected me to lead the civic education presentation on Friday to our leadership. I shared our findings as they chimed in with great points about how these lessons from our Easter egg hunt could apply to IDEA’s potential project. Working with those two is always a joy – they’re so smart and insightful. We each bring our own unique backgrounds to the table: my experience in human rights work with NGOs, Jared's consultancy background, and Kirby's impressive decade-long career as a director and filmmaker. It's amazing how well we all complement each other, and it's clear that IDEA put a lot of thought into assembling our team. Our bosses were really excited about our progress, and decided we should take the next step: meeting with our counterparts at the IDEA base in Brussels. After I signed off for the day, I closed my laptop triumphantly, ready to reward myself with a bowl of seafood pasta. With work trips to Oxford next week and Brussels the week after, I couldn’t help but smile. Despite being halfway through my internship, there is still so much to learn.
