From our friends at the Silver Spring IRC!

My name is Kyle Monsees. I am the Community Engagement Coordinator at the International Rescue Committee in Silver Spring, Maryland. I’d like to inform you that the IRC in Silver Spring is now recruiting spring 2024 interns. Spring 2024 interns may be eligible for per diem reimbursement at the rate of $15/day to offset the costs of food and travel. Please pass this message along to interested applicants.

I’ve listed the titles and a brief description of each internship below. You can find the full description by going to https://rescue.csod.com/ats/careersite/search.aspx?site=1&c=rescue and filtering by City (Silver Spring) and Employee Category (Intern).

Prospective interns will use that link to apply. We strongly encourage interested applicants to apply for more than one program. If you want professional, hands-on experience working with refugees, asylees, & trafficking victims, apply to be an intern with the IRC in Silver Spring!

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) was founded at the behest of Albert Einstein in 1933 to assist people fleeing from persecution. Since then, the IRC has grown and works all over the world providing humanitarian support. In Silver Spring, the IRC works with refugees the moment they step off the plane to help them get situated and become self-sufficient members of their new community.

IRC internships give interns the opportunity to work directly with refugees to teach them or help them accomplish tasks needed to live successfully in the US. We offer 14 unique internships that offer a wide variety of opportunities to develop different skills and gain experience including:

• 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.

• Asylee 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.

• Financial Capabilities: The Financial Capability program supports clients to become financially capable through financial education, coaching and providing low-interest loan products. Services include financial education and counseling that help clients understand banking, budgeting, saving, debt management, building credit and auto purchase.

• 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.

• Immigration:  IRC’s Immigration Department in Silver Spring, Maryland provides high quality, low-cost immigration services, including filing applications for adjustment of status (i.e. green cards), work authorization, naturalization, family reunification for refugees, asylees, victims of trafficking and other immigrants, and legal services for unaccompanied children.

• Intake: 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.

• 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 new clients in the youth program and completing individual service plans for each individual client.

Most internships require a minimum of 15 to 20 hours per week. All selected interns will need to undergo and clear a background check 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 ability to work in-person is required.

The IRC is not able to sponsor visas.

Internships with the IRC in Silver Spring are unpaid. Spring 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 intern coordinator at Kyle.Monsees@Rescue.org.

To view opportunities and apply, visit https://rescue.csod.com/ats/careersite/search.aspx?site=1&c=rescue Applications require a resume, cover letter, and list of three references.

We currently offer internships during the following semesters:
Spring: January – May
Summer: May – August
Fall: September – December
Internships are typically posted 2-3 months prior to the anticipated start date.

*Candidates applying who are not currently enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program, or are outside 12 months of their graduation are welcome to apply. These candidates will be processed as volunteers.

IRC leading the way from harm to home.

IRC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. IRC considers all applicants on the basis of merit without regard to race, sex, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

If you need assistance in the application or hiring process to accommodate a disability, you may request an accommodation at any time. Please contact Talent Acquisitions at IRC.Recruitment@rescue.org. As required by law, the IRC will provide reasonable accommodations to qualified applicants and employees with a known disability.

 Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you,

Kyle Monsees | Community Engagement Coordinator
International Rescue Committee

Silver Spring Office: 8719 Colesville Road 3^rd floor, Silver Spring, MD 20910

T + 1 301 562 8633 ext. 218