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Hi, everyone.

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So my name is Khadija El Karfi.

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I'm an international
student from Morocco.

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And I'm also double-majoring
in international relations

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and French.

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So basically,
Palestine and Israel

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was what I focused
on this summer.

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And I'm from Morocco,
so I did not really

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know a lot about Palestine.

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But then I took a
class with [INAUDIBLE]

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one of my favorite professors.

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You should take a class
with him if you go here.

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So the class was
about Palestine,

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and during that class,
I learned about what

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was going on in Palestine.

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And then I learned about
Israel, and there was, like, so

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many information that
was very overwhelming

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but was very interesting.

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And I felt that,
during the class,

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I was getting a
lot of information,

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but I was not getting
as much as I wanted to.

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So when I was looking for
internships during the summer,

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I wanted to look
for something that I

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would be able to learn more
about the Israeli-Palestinian

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conflict.

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Being Moroccan, we tend to
be very pro-Palestinian,

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and we don't really tend to
see the other side, which

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is what happens in Israel and
what they have to go through.

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So a brief history
about Palestine.

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So first of all, there was
a partition in Palestine

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which happened in 1948.

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So basically, there was
this mandate by the UK,

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and then when the
UK left, Palestine

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was just left like that.

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And that's when the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict

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started.

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And then we had the
first Arab Israeli War.

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And that's when the UN proposed
a partition plan for Palestine

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that was called
the Resolution 181.

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And this is the most
important resolution

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that the UN has ever passed.

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So basically, in
that resolution,

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it said that Palestine
should be divided in two,

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and one part should be called
Israel and the other part

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should be Palestine.

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So basically, obviously,
as you can imagine,

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the Arabs were not very
happy about that, especially

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the Palestinians.

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So that's when you had the
first Arab Israeli War in 1948.

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So this is when the
Arabs threatened

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to take military
action, and to prevent

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the partition of
Palestine, and to ensure

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that the Palestinian
rights were established.

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And then after that,
we've had a lot of wars,

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we had the Six-Day
War, the 1973 War,

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and then we had the PLO
that was seen as being

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a terrorist organization.

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And then we had
the Intifada, which

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means "a catastrophe"
in Arabic, "intifada."

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And then we had
the peace process.

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And then we still have the
drive for Palestinian statehood.

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So it's like an ongoing conflict
that is still happening today.

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If you go to the New York
Times, Washington Post,

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you will find a lot of
articles about what's

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happening in Palestine and
what's happening in Israel.

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So it's an ongoing thing.

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So my internship side.

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So when I first went to DC,
I was very excited to go,

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I thought my office
would be so big,

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so many people would
be in the office.

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And then I went, and I saw this
little door, and I was like,

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is this where I'm going to go?

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So I went inside, and then
I see this man inside.

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I'm like, OK, is this
where I'm going to go?

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And he's like, hey,
[INAUDIBLE] whatever.

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So basically, the office
was composed of four people.

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And I thought it
would be bigger.

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I didn't even imagine having
to ask about how many people

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worked in the office.

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So when I went, I was
like, oh, how many people

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actually work here?

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And they were like,
oh, just four people.

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I was like, OK, cool.

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So it was me, and three
other interns, and then

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the other four people.

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So the mission of
the Palestine Center

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was to raise awareness
about Palestine

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both in the United States
and abroad, and also try

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to help the Palestinians that
were living in the United

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States or in the diaspora.

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But the thing is that--

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I was like, OK, it's
a small non-profit,

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there's not much going on.

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But me and the other
interns, we were going

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to try and do something new.

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We wanted to go in the
streets of DC, talk to people,

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tell them about what was
going on in Palestine.

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Please help us.

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Let's do something all
together and stuff like that.

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So we went to our supervisor.

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We were like, hey, can
go out in the streets

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and just have fliers
and give them to people?

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And he was like, um, this
is a 501(c) non-profit.

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And we were like,
what does that mean?

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And he's like, so
basically, what

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that means is that they
don't have to pay for taxes.

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But the disadvantage is that
there's limited [INAUDIBLE]..

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So that means we could not
go out into the streets

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and just be talking to people,
how it's going on in Palestine.

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Because then we would
have the Israeli Lobby

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that would come and try to
end the Palestine Center.

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So basically, we had
to stay in our office,

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just do research on
the computer, which

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would get really boring.

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So I was really not
satisfied with my internship.

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So every day I would
go to my other interns.

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Three of them were
from Georgetown.

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And I'd be like, listen,
guys, this is not OK.

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I did not come all the way to
DC just to sit in an office.

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I want to do something.

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So every day we'd go to our
supervisor and be like, hey,

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can we have something to do?

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And he's be like, no,
you can't do it today.

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So we'd just be in our office
writing blogs and trying

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to do something.

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So this is the history
about the Palestine Center.

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It was founded in 1977.

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And basically, when
it was founded,

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it was just to give
scholarships to Palestinians

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to come either to the US or
go to university in Israel,

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because it was really hard to
go from Palestine to Israel.

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But then they expanded
to the Humanitarian Link.

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So basically, the Humanitarian
Link gives money to hospitals,

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clinics in Palestine.

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And then there's a
Palestine Center.

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That's where I interned.

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And then there's
the Gallery Al-Quds

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which is like this
gallery where they

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have paintings from Palestinian
artists and stuff like that.

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So this staff, this is the
four people I worked with--

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Mohamed Mohamed, Samirah,
Dagmar Painter and [? Ali. ?]

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So this is all the goodies
that were on the website.

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But I ended up only
doing this and this.

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So it was only the
two things that I was

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doing throughout my internship.

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So it was a little
disappointing.

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And this is all of the other
stuff that were on the website

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but I didn't get to do.

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But I got to do the Summer
Intern Lecture series.

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So basically, throughout
the whole summer,

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we were supposed to plan
this Summer Intern Lecture

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series, which actually
was very interesting.

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So throughout the summer,
we were reaching out

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to people in the DC
area, sending them

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emails, telling them, hey,
like, we want to talk.

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So basically, we decided to
talk about the distortion

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of the Palestinian story in
the media, how it was narrated.

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So basically, we
reached out to NPR,

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we reached out to the
Middle East Institute.

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We reached out to
a lot of people,

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but we would never
get any responses.

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So we have been reaching out
to people for three months,

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and then we got
three people that

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came to our lecture
series, which was not bad.

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Overall, I was not really
satisfied with my internship.

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I'm not going to lie.

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Because my previous
internship, I

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had an internship with the
courthouse in Springfield.

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And in that internship,
I used to talk

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to people on a daily
basis and actually

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meet them and help them with
paperwork, go to the courtroom.

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And it was just like so much
action that was happening.

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And when I was in a small office
doing the same thing every day,

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it was a little frustrating.

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But the good thing about
my summer internship

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is that I was very honored to
stay with an alum from Mount

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Holyoke.

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She was the Chief of
Staff during the Obama

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administration.

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And she was very,
very nice to host me

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throughout the whole
for three months.

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And she actually
cooked food for me,

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invited me to her beach house.

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And it was just
an awesome summer.

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So now I'm actually interning at
the office of Senator Elizabeth

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Warren in Springfield.

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And once again, it's
very interesting,

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and I get to do a lot of stuff
that I really want to do,

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which is talk to constituents,
help them with casework,

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and feel like I'm actually
doing some change.

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So that means if
you want to apply

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for-- one thing
I have learned is

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that if you want to
apply for an internship,

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please make sure to
talk to people that went

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through the same internship.

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Reach out to them through
LinkedIn, through Facebook,

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and be like, hey, I'm
thinking about applying

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to this internship.

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Do you think this is
a good idea or not?

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And then you're going to hear
about their own experience.

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Because I feel like if
I thought about that,

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I wouldn't probably have
been doing that internship.

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I would have been
doing something else.

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But it was also something
that I had to learn.

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And I now I know that I
could not work in non-profit

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and I could not work in
a small organization.

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So that was all.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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