Obvious Money Grab for the Foundation

When there are 20 interns spread over three offices that have a total of 50 employees, you know you have a big problem. The foundation is currently making nearly $9,000 on interns this month, enough to pay the annual salary of two of its staff. Considering the complete lack of attention and commitment the foundation pays to interns, it is rather obvious they are in it for the money and not the welfare and experience of the interns they bring in.

On the job, there are several problems. One, the aforementioned people problem. FP works in a number of fields, but the vast majority of interns want to work in microfinance, during the summer there are more interns than there are employees in the office. This leads to little guidance or structure from the staff, and no involvement in the day to day operations. The second problem is the lack of a defined internship period. Interns stay everywhere from 3 weeks to six months, the staff has no idea which is which and therefore is not very compelled to involve interns. More committed interns will suffer. This is not the fault of the staff at all, who are very sharp, very busy, and have bigger fish to fry. It is the fault of the internship program becoming so unnecessarily large for the sake of profit that interns become a burden rather than an asset for the staff.

The selection process of interns, or lack thereof, is where the money grab becomes ever more obvious. A classic example is allowing an intern who speaks no Spanish to come to the Foundation, despite the fact that it is impossible to work here without at least an intermediate background in the language. The intern coordinator more or less ignores these potentially huge issues and accepts them so long as they pay $550 a month. The intern is now paying to take Spanish courses on top of the internship fee, and may not be involved at all with the foundation proper.

As for housing, interns are housed in rather nice but poorly maintained house. While the extra amenities such as a pool and a grill are fantastic, the essentials such as running water, functioning roofs and overall security are suspect. They have squeezed interns into the bedrooms between 2 and 5 to a room, the most challenging being rooms of 3 and 4 girls respectively. Sharing a bathroom among 7 girls has proven very challenging, especially as they are the last to receive water in the house from the tank that provides it. There are leaks in multiple rooms which have gone ignored after multiple promises for action, and many interns have come home to soaked beds or armoires dripping water onto clothes. These are all things that I would be willing to cope with in the developing world were we not well aware that nice apartments with individual bedrooms rented by interns in other organizations cost $200-250 in town, and we didn't have to share half of the house with the microfinance office.

Finally, the attitude of the internship coordinator has been so terrible that she is an ongoing joke among staff and interns alike. When an intern was very ill and felt the need to go to the hospital, she recommended taking the bus despite being 1 block away in her office with a car. When the aforementioned intern without Spanish asked what he could do, she replied 'what would you suggest'? Finally, when approached concerning the request for lockers after another robbery, she replied that one should guard their things at the house as if it were the supermarket.

I enjoyed myself in Paraguay, but this was in spite of all the struggles I had with the internship in general and the coordinator in particular. What saddens me most is the so many people with a desire to work in the non-profit world left jaded by the experience and potentially turned off from the sector entirely after their experience with Fundación Paraguaya. I would strongly recommend against this program, although it has potential, changes are badly needed within the program.