Notes from the Field: Alisha Yan '19

Alisha Yan '19 interned at Safe Kids Worldwide for the Winter 2018 term. The following is an excerpt from her internship report.

This winter, I had the opportunity to intern at Safe Kids Worldwide, a non-profit public health/child safety group with coalitions across the United States and in several other countries. Safe Kids focuses on preventable childhood injuries and conducts research, awareness, advocacy, and education in risk areas such as pedestrian, home, pool, fire, and car safety.

During my internship, I worked in the advocacy department. My daily responsibilities included researching and drafting letters of support or meeting requests, drafting tweets about news, bills in congress, and other related safety topics, and attending both internal and external meetings and briefings as a representative of the advocacy department. Some of my most notable work includes a letter to the Surgeon General on child vehicular heatstroke, a letter of support for primary enforcement of seat belt law to the Vermont Senate, and working with Uber to discuss ways in which we can ensure child safety in autonomous vehicles. The bulk of my work centered on writing and I plan to use this new, precise writing style that I have developed in my future work.

Throughout my time at Safe Kids Worldwide, I drew heavily on the lessons I learned from the Rockefeller Global Leadership Program (RGLP). During 17F, I completed RGLP and learned about diversity, acceptance, tolerance, and true leadership. This allowed me to efficiently put myself in the shoes of someone different from myself and be more accepting instead of judging. In advocacy, it is easy to dismiss the other side without attempting to understand who they are and how they formed their beliefs, but RGLP taught me to be mindful of other people and their perspectives before blindly judging them. This skill helped me craft better letters of support because I was able to better understand the opposing side’s point of view. My time in D.C. would not have been possible without the generous funding that the Rockefeller Center offered me. This internship was an unforgettable experience, both academically and personally.