My name is Mathieu Lavault I am a U3 student studying towards a double major in Political Science and Sociology. I interned for Equitas - International Centre for Human Rights Education. I have always been interested in what human rights means and how societies today interpret them and that is why I decided to work there this summer. I interned more specifically as a research assistant for the newly formed Environment Committee with the goal of finding a human rights-based approach to climate change and the environment.
The reason why I wanted to do this internship was because I have been interested in combining my interest in human rights with the dire need to protect the planet from climate change. I wanted people to understand more about how the effects of climate change hurt people who have been historically marginalized by society and to bring them to light through education. I wanted to understand what could be done to make human rights work for everyone and to make them understandable through a climate change lenses. I had several thematic areas that I covered in doing my research. I was able to learn more about environmental justice, racism, colonialism, ecofeminism, as well as understanding how the fight for climate change can help better our understanding of human rights across the world and end many inequalities that still exist. I was able to compile several documents from NGOs, academics, and the United Nations that talked about how human rights are climate rights and how the environment affects the people of the world.
What does Equitas do? Its mission is to advance the themes of equality, social justice, and respect for human dignity. The organization does this through transformative human rights education programs done in Canada and around the world. What Equitas does is to empower individuals and groups that have been targets of discrimination, exclusion, and other forms of human rights violations. Equitas challenges inequality and discrimination and takes action so that there is respect, protection, and defense of human rights.
My responsibility during this internship was to focus my research on the interaction between human rights and environmental and climate issues. My daily tasks included finding documents, academic papers, as well as firsthand accounts of the topic aforementioned above and synthesizing these findings into reports which would be given every week to my supervisor. I also had to make sure that what I found could then be used later in their education models. I attended weekly staff meetings with the Environment Committee to discuss my findings.
Some of the highlights of this internship included being able to work with a staff that were passionate about their work and played as a team. What I enjoyed was how my supervisor appreciated all the hard work that went into looking into all the different ways that human rights are climate rights. I also enjoyed getting feedback from her on how to improve my reading notes, which was important for me getting better at them. Another highlight was being able to work with different staff members and understand why it is that they were interested in working for Equitas. I enjoyed the fact that I had the freedom to explore and research different topics that I wanted to find out about. Overall, the greatest highlight was finding out that my research on climate and human rights was going to be used later in the summer education modules.
I am not receiving credit for the internship.
This internship will shape my future career by always placing human rights as an important part of human society. The importance is to place human dignity and respect for life above everything else and this will help me shape my mentality for other things I do in life whether I work in a private or public job or if I decide to work for Equitas myself.
I received funding through the Arts Undergraduate Improvement Fund, which helped me to fulfill all the research I wanted to do with Equitas and much more. I was able to accomplish the amount of research with the time that was given to me.
I did not find it difficult to work remotely, as most of work in research was done on a computer, so it was not hard. My best tip for working remotely is to treat your desk or wherever you work as your workstation with hours where you work and do not - that will help you stay concentrated and on task.
