I’m emailing to share the IRC in Silver Spring’s engagement opportunities for Summer 2024 – our summer academy volunteer opportunity and summer internship program. Please pass this message along to interested candidates.

Summer Academy Volunteer Opportunity – Now Accepting Applicants through June 10^th!

The IRC in Silver Spring’s Summer Academy is a free learning experience for refugee students who are rising 6^th-12^th graders in Prince George’s and Montgomery County schools in Maryland. Volunteers facilitate lessons in English language and math, while incorporating extracurricular subjects and activities to broaden student’s horizons. Sign up here.

The program will take place in Prince George’s County July 8th – August 9th with 2-week cohorts of students in middle and high school. Weekly Schedule: Monday through Thursday 9:30am-2:30pm.

Volunteers are expected to attend all morning, afternoon or all-day sessions for their preferred cohort. You may participate in both cohorts, if desired.

Previous teaching and/or ESOL experience preferred but not required! This opportunity is open to volunteers high-school age and above. This opportunity is an Student Service Learning hours approved activity.

All volunteers must attend a mandatory training on Monday, June 10th 6-7PM via Zoom. Sign up here.

Summer 2024 Internships – Apply by May 15^th, 2024

The IRC in Silver Spring is still recruiting Summer 2024 interns. IRC internships give interns the opportunity to work directly with refugees to support them in accomplishing tasks needed to live successfully in the U.S. We offer 16 unique internships that provide a wide variety of opportunities to gain direct exposure to the refugee resettlement sector.

We strongly encourage interested applicants to apply for more than one program. If you want professional, hands-on experience working with refugees, asylees and other humanitarian immigrants, apply to be an intern with the IRC in Silver Spring!

I’ve listed the titles and a description of each internship that is recruiting below. You can find the full description by going to the IRC Careers page and filtering by City (Silver Spring) and Employee Category (Intern). Prospective interns will use the same link to apply.

• Anti-Trafficking: The Anti-Trafficking Intern will work in close coordination with the case management teams to serve survivors of human trafficking who are struggling to navigate various systems to access resources and services.
• Refugee Walk-in Casework: The Asylee Casework team is the first point of contact for asylee clients. Caseworkers provide 8 months of case management to asylees. The services include providing monthly cash assistance, ensuring that clients apply for public benefits such as Medicaid, food stamps, ensuring that clients apply for social security and enroll in health insurance and ESL classes.
• Career Development: The Career Development Program assists employed clients in securing job upgrades to improve economic conditions and align with career history and/or career objectives. The intern will work closely with the Career Development team and Financial Capabilities program to promote client self-sufficiency and encourage clients to work towards long-term career goals.
• Community Engagement: The aim of community engagement is to establish strong, mutually beneficial connections between the community and the IRC in Silver Spring order to garner monetary, in-kind and volunteer resources for refugee clients. The community engagement intern supports the administration of the family mentor program.  
• Economic Empowerment: The Economic Empowerment program assists refugees to become economically self-sufficient by placing recently arrived refugees in their first job in the United States.  
• Refugee Employment and Skill-Building: The Refugee Employment and Skill-Building Program aims to reduce barriers to self-sufficiency and employment and assist refugees to secure full-time employment.
• Refugee Employment Coordination: The Employment Coordination Program supports humanitarian immigrants to achieve economic self-sufficiency through engagement in work participation activities including volunteering, internship procurement, vocational English as a second language classes, and referrals to certificate-bearing professional development courses.
• Gender Equity: IRC programming assists refugees to become economically self-sufficient and supports acclimatization within the United States by providing access to casework services. This role will support the IRC’s Gender Equality work, cross-cutting programmatically and departmentally to support the administration of equitable services and the proper consideration of gender concerns in programmatic and departmental initiatives.
• Refugee Walk-in Services: The Intake program is the first point of contact to all “walk-in” clients that visit the IRC in Silver Spring. We provide fast track enrollment in public benefits and referrals to internal and/or external resources and programs as needed.
• Extended Case Management: The Extended Case Management (ECM) team provides case management services to up to 400 new clients each year. The team works directly with new refugees, asylees, parolees, and other humanitarian immigrants resettling in the DC Metro area, including Haitian, Ukrainian, Latin American, African, and Middle Eastern individuals; utilizing a holistic 2Gen household approach for the families served, the team addresses both short-term and long-term barriers to support overall well-being in the US.
• Refugee Health and Social Integration Intern: The refugee health and social integration intern will work in close coordination with the case management teams to serve refugees and other vulnerable immigrants who are struggling to navigate various systems to access resources and services.
• Refugee Resettlement: The Refugee Resettlement team supports refugees during their first eight months in the United States. The housing team prepares apartments for new families. Caseworkers connect refugees with services include providing monthly cash assistance, ensuring that clients apply for public benefits such Medicaid, food stamps, social security and enroll in health insurance and ESL classes. The cultural orientation team introduce refugees to U.S. customs and systems.
• Youth Program: The IRC’s Youth Program works to support the integration of school-age recently arrived refugees and asylees. Interns will support the enrolling of new clients in the youth program and completing individual service plans for each individual client.

All selected interns will undergo and clear a background and reference check to intern. We ask that you make a $30 donation to help us cover the associated costs. Currently, 87% of our funding goes directly to programming to support our clients, and your help to cover this cost will ensure that no funding is directed away from serving our clients. Instructions will be provided after you have been selected to intern or volunteer. The IRC is not able to sponsor visas.

The ability to work in-person at least one day per week is required. Internships require a minimum commitment of 15 hours per week. Summer interns are also expected to begin their internship term by attending an in-person intern orientation on June 3rd, 2024, from 9:15AM-2:00PM.

Internships with the IRC in Silver Spring are unpaid. Summer 2024 interns may be eligible for per diem reimbursement at the rate of $15/day to offset the costs of food and travel. For information on scholarship opportunities, contact your university or the IRC Silver Spring Community Engagement Specialist at Michalina.Kulesza@rescue.org.

Thank you for your attention and please don’t hesitate to reach out with questions.

Sincerely,

Michalina Kulesza, M.P.A | Community Engagement Specialist

International Rescue Committee

8737 Colesville Road Suite 1200, Silver Spring, MD 20910

T + 1 518 965 3400