During my sophomore year, I was a Communications Intern at the United Nations Foundation (UNF) for the girl campaign, Girl Up. As a Journalism and Mass Communications major with a passion for women and girls’ issues, I was very excited to be given the opportunity to work with this organization and receive the Humphries award. Girl Up is the UNF’s adolescent girl campaign that works internationally to promote the education, health and safety of girls. Girl Up has six focus countries: Guatemala, Ethiopia, Liberia, Malawi, India and Uganda that it works with. Girl Up’s organization is also unique in that it has high school and college clubs across the U.S and the U.K. to assist with fundraising for our campaigns.
I helped Girl Up with multiple successful initiatives this year, including their SchoolCycle program that raises money to secure bikes for girls to ride to school. Girl Up found that one of the biggest barriers for girls’ education is transportation, so SchoolCycle provides girls with bikes. I have also helped them with their Disney partnership, in which their #DreamBigPrincess campaign raised $1 million for Girl Up’s programs. Another important initiative is Team GirlUp, which is a program that gathers girls to run half-marathons and marathons to raise money for Girl Up. As a communications intern, I helped with these fundraisers through social media & outreach. For example, I created different graphics, videos and social media announcements for our programs. I was constantly experimenting with what writing techniques and graphics worked the best and received the most engagement. I also tried to bring new ideas to our brand, by experimenting with gifs, memes and different hashtags to gain more internet traffic.
As Girl Up’s only communications intern, I also had many responsibilities on a daily basis. I controlled all of their social media accounts, including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, email, and Toolkit, in which I had to keep up with relevant posts. I learned to utilize their software to queue posts to ensure a steady flow of content. In addition, I made videos for Girl Up’s social media accounts based on relevant news involving women and girls. I also created graphic designs for various events; I designed invitations, save-the-date’s, infographics, programs, and informational packets/handouts. I also assisted with writing and editing blogs/newsflashes and helping with planning for girls’ leadership summits. I was ultimately responsible for communicating all information with our supporters, donors and partners. My skills in these areas have improved immeasurably since beginning my work with this organization.
The biggest takeaway from this internship was a newfound appreciation for the importance of public relations and outreach. As a journalism major, I had mostly focused on just writing before working with Girl Up. After my work with Girl Up, I suddenly realized how my journalism background helps with other forms of communication. For example, my skills as a journalist helped with creating meaningful and concise infographics, writing scripts for videos and crafting social media posts that hook people in. I began to really enjoy the element of outreach and marketing, and hope to pursue a career in this field in the future. In addition, I loved using my skills to work for a cause I was very passionate about. Working for an organization that helps girls internationally was something very important to me, and I’m so happy that I was able to spend my sophomore year with this group. Due to the Humphries scholarship, I was able to fully enjoy this work, without any financial burden, and learn so much more than I could learn in a classroom.
Follow this link to fine the video I created of Girl Up 2017 Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYsyaDW_dUs
Follow this link to find the blog I created for International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women 2017.
- Taylor Galgano IP 2016-17
