Ivette Sanchez- CCIA intern

Student Biography

Ivette Sanchez, a native New Yorker, is a rising junior in Columbia College majoring in History with a concentration in Women and Gender's Studies. In the recent spring semester, Ivette was selected to participate in the Center for Career Education's Columbia Communities in Action (CCIA) program, which provides selected students with a New York-based internship in the field of civic engagement. With the support of CCIA, She interned at the National Latina Institute of Reproductive Health where she supported policy and community mobilization efforts, including assisting in new curriculum development and fact sheet updating. Ivette has accepted a full-time summer position at the NLIRH where she will begin research on Latina teen pregnancy as well as the medical care offered to immigrant women in detention centers.

Ivette has assisted in research and administration at the Center of Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School since it's inception in the spring of 2008. In addition to analyzing issues of diversity in higher education, her interest in social justice and public policy lead her to a summer internship in U.S. Congressman Steve Israel's local office in the second district of New York.  A John W. Kluge Scholar at Columbia, she has taken on leadership responsibilities as an Associate Editor at the Columbia Daily Spectator, the official campus newspaper, as well as a member of the Editorial Board. This upcoming semester, she will be the Educational Chair of Latino Heritage Month, programming educational and heritage related events throughout the month.

Her Experience

"The Columbia Communities in Action (CCIA) program was a great opportunity to connect academic interests to career experiences. For ten weeks during my spring semester, I worked on several projects and assisted in administration at the National Latina Institute of Reproductive Health. I am proud of the projects that I completed this semester and learned about various fields, including public health, immigration law and public policy.

I compiled a training module for our national network of Latina advocates on the status of reproductive justice in Latin American countries, as well as the connections between U.S. government policy and the reproductive health rights of Latin American women. This included researching the status of birth control, legal abortion, and maternal health rates in Latin American and Caribbean, media materials about Latin American reproductive rights issues, and the status of community mobilization efforts towards organizing reproductive rights victories. It was fascinating to study how different Latin American political values, which I had previously studied in my history courses, had a direct effect on the lives of Latina women and families.

I was also responsible for producing abstracts on news reports and academic scholarship regarding the treatment of immigrant women in civil detention centers. This was a function of the Latina Institute's membership in the steering committee of the National Coalition of Immigrant Women's Rights. Finally, I had the opportunity to participate in informational meetings for youth peer educators on reproductive justice, construct an on-line calendar of important events in the history of feminism, Latin America, and reproductive justice, and write articles on the reproductive health care of women in detention centers for the blog.

CCIA introduced me to the career possibilities in the non-profit sector. Working for causes and people that you feel passionately about is truly fulfilling and I found that the people I worked with in these organizations were bright and inspirational. Moreover, there was exceptional support offered by CCIA coordinators throughout, including orientation materials in the beginning, frequent check-ins, and reflective sessions at the end.

At the end of my internship in the spring, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, I accepted a position in the summer internship program as a Policy and Advocacy Intern. I plan on pursuing graduate education in reproductive rights an immigration law, and am also interested in working with community organizations that are directed specifically towards servicing the reproductive rights of Latina women."