International Programs Archived

Thanks to the ILR International Travel Grant Program, I travelled to the San Quintín Valley in Baja California, Mexico this winter to learn from the workers, employers, state and community actors about employment relations in agribusiness.

This winter I had the opportunity to travel to Cuba, a country I longed to visit due to its proximity to my native country of México and the United States.

Thanks to a grant from the ILR International Travel Grant Program, I travelled to Dublin, Ireland where I joined a group of global scholars presenting their research at the 32nd Annual Conference of the International Association of Conflict Management (IACM) this summer.

Humbling. Energizing. Inspiring.”

After two days of hearing fellow delegates present their papers, presenting my own paper, and engaging in the thoughtful dialogue that followed each panel, these three words, out of the many I could have chosen, were the three I shared.

There is a famous saying in Turkish that can be translated roughly in English as “One language is one person, two languages are two persons.” As it can be quickly inferred from the saying, learning another language not only gives you a chance to communicate in another language but also changes you by creating a concrete different personality who can see the world from a completely different perspective.

This winter, I had the incredible opportunity to travel to Southern India to complete some field research for my ILR Honors Thesis. Receiving the ILR International Programs Travel Grant allowed me to pursue my understanding of international and comparative labor through conversations with women waste workers in the Nilgiris District of Tamil Nadu, India.

During the summer of 2017, I had an opportunity to do an internship for the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) in Brussels, Belgium. Because the internship was unpaid, I was able to participate through the generous support of the ILR International Travel Grant.

This past summer, I traveled to Shanghai, China, to work for a supply chain management company called Li and Fung Limited. For eight weeks, I worked in their office as an intern. I knew that interning in China would be completely different than interning in the United States, and I was looking forward to learning about Li Fung’s approach to business.

In summer of 2017, I had the incredible opportunity to spend 5 weeks in Israel on a research internship with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC).

For the winter intersession of 2016-2017, I received an ILR Travel Grant that facilitated my participation in an HR internship located in Córdoba, Argentina.

In December of 2016 going into January of 2017, I had the opportunity to travel to Guangzhou, China, in support of an ILR honors thesis regarding modern youth worker consciousness in China.

In May 2016, I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel to Porto, Portugal and work as a squash coach for the ‘Escola de Squash do Porto’ (Squash School of Porto).  

This summer I was given the wonderful opportunity to travel to Ghana for two months for my internship with Voices of African Mothers, a United Nations NGO whose mission statement is to establish a peaceful African continent by using the methods of conflict resolution and diplomacy.

This past summer of 2016, I was granted the opportunity to intern as a volunteer instructor at John William Montessori School for the Voices of African Mothers within Kumasi, Ghana.

GoodWeave is an organization headquartered in Washington D.C. that focuses on monitoring carpet factories around the world for compliance with ethical labor standards.

This summer I travelled to Nakuru, Kenya, along with five other Cornell students to establish a start-up, self-sustaining catering service for a local disability center in desperate need of a steady source of income.  In addition, by hiring persons with disabilities to cook low-cost, nutritious food, we hoped to help bring an end to the stigma associated with persons with disabilities in Kenya while improving the general health of some of the low-income population of the Nakuru community.

This trip taught me that to tackle any problem in the developing world requires a multi-faceted approach.

This winter break I spent 3 weeks in Cusco, Peru, participating in a care-giving project offered through UBELONG at the Centro de Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (CEDIF). CEDIF offers health and wellness programs for poor children and elderly people that live in the area of Wanchaq.

I felt very involved with the inner workings of the small business and was able to engage with employees along the supply chain including farmers, factory workers, distributors, and managers.

I went to Lima to talk with leaders from different unions about their organizations' current and future strategies.

To me, this experience meant more than work. I developed a sense of self-awareness in a new cultural context and found meaning in being an active citizen.

I was part of a diverse and multidisciplinary team with members from Colombia, France, Tunisia, the U.S., and Mexico. Our project had four main objectives: develop a cost analysis, communicate soil quality reports, conduct experiments to identify coffee producers’ risk profiles, and develop an organizational analysis to help improve communication and quality standards.

With the help of our Cameroonian partner and Bekondo Foundation intern, Coretta, we developed a new program called Women's Initiative for Village Entrepreneurship in which we held weekly meetings for women to come learn a new skill or learn how to be more sustainable with the readily available resources in the village.

The ILR School has always been at the frontier of resolving current organizational problems through teaching, research, and outreach.

I strongly believe that international experiences are imperative for Americans because they provide perspective, which is something that extends much deeper than academics.

I had an amazing experience in Ghana that I know I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

Over the course of three days, participants in our track presented research examining shifts in the nature of work and the tensions and opportunities that mark a variety of emergent work forms such as temporary and contract work, work performed remotely, increased remote-monitoring of work, and computerization of work.

When my favorite government professor mentioned a future winter course in Cambodia to me last year, I listened excitedly about an opportunity I didn’t think I’d ever be able to pursue personally.