Learning Life is a Washington, DC-based nonprofit lab devoted to innovating education, democracy and diplomacy by spreading learning in everyday life beyond school walls. In our increasingly interconnected yet divided world, we develop innovative learning communities in order to widen and deepen participation in democracy and diplomacy.
With this mission in mind, we run three programs:
Our Democracy Learning Community (DLC) in the Washington DC area is devoted to making democracy more fun by developing events, products, services and spaces that entertain as well as nurture learning, networking, collaboration and wider, deeper citizen participation.
The Family Diplomacy Initiative (FDI) connects people worldwide across lines of country, class, race and religion via the internet to share and learn together about families and citizen diplomacy with an eye to developing a corps of trained family diplomats to advocate for a more caring world via media, businesses, nonprofits and governments.
Citizen Diplomacy International gathers diplomacy scholars, students, professionals, and volunteers worldwide every three months online via Zoom for 1.5 hours to share news and presentations on CD research and practice, local to global, with an eye to building a vibrant global CD sector for a more participatory, equitable and sustainable world.
Learning Life accepts resumes from graduate and undergraduate students worldwide interested in interning with us remotely. The internship ranges from 8 to 32 hours per week, depending on academic requirements, though most of our interns work 8-10 hours/week and do not take their internship for course credit. The internship is online, so students can intern from anywhere in the USA, and given certain conditions (e.g., reliable internet connection, meeting-feasible time zones, advanced English, French or Spanish) from abroad. Depending on each student’s interests and skills plus our organizational needs, interns support the above-mentioned programs, assisting with a variety of tasks including research and writing; local-to-global communications and community building; poster, video and website design and development; fundraising research and outreach, and more.
The internship typically starts in early-to-late January, mid-to-late May, or late August to early September, though other start dates are permissible depending on the student’s academic calendar. Interns must be able to commit a minimum of 8 hours/week: about 6 hours/week of independent work + and 2 hours of work meetings, including a live one-on-one meeting via Zoom once per week with Learning Life’s Director, Paul Lachelier, to go over work completed and assign new tasks. The internship is unpaid, but offers substantive, resume-building experience working on innovative democracy and diplomacy initiatives, and a formal reference and/or recommendation letter upon request given satisfactory performance.
Applicants should be interested in democracy, diplomacy, education, communications (video, photo and/or social media, especially Facebook and Linkedin), and/or children and families, and also be outgoing, organized, detail-oriented, motivated and punctual. The ability to read, write and speak French, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, or any other major language at an advanced to fluent level is a plus, as are poster and video-making skills.
To apply, send your resume to email@learninglife.info. If you would like to be considered for research and writing projects, please include 2-3 writing samples. No need for a cover letter. Please indicate in your email when you would like to start interning with Learning Life. We will contact you to schedule an interview if your resume matches what we are looking for. Thank you for your interest!
Visit learninglife.info/about/people for links to profiles of some of our past interns.
