FIELDWORK AMONG REFUGEES IN GREECE – Available internships for students in 2024
Northern Lights Aid (NLA) is an international, voluntary grassroots organization based in the city of Kavala in northern Greece. The purpose of the organization is to improve the quality of life of refugees staying in the country. We would like to invite students at NTNU to an educational and meaningful effort for NLA, as part of their bachelor's or master's degree.
Application deadline: Continuous – alternatively 1. March 2024
All applications are assessed on an ongoing basis.
Several programme areas at NTNU include internships as part of the academic track, and Northern Lights Aid would like to be a partner. Doing fieldwork for NLA is unpaid but can in many cases be completed as part of the Erasmus+ scheme. In recent years, this has been the case for several of our international volunteers from universities in different European countries (see Appendix 1, Testimonies from former field workers).
The working language in the field is English and you must be a minimum of 20 years old to work with us. As of December 2023, the NLA is assisting about 1,200 residents of the defunct Perigiali military camp turned reception center in Kavala, but also offers support to Greek low-income families and Ukrainian refugees in the city.
An internship at NLA primarily involves work experience and exposure to new perspectives, which will benefit the student as an important contribution in their further course of study and career. Examples of relevant topics for examination during such a stay include the organisation of humanitarian relief efforts, how to achieve a dignified and effective distribution of material aid, the cooperation between different NGOs, how to improve the logistics of aid work, fundraising, the asylum system in theory and practice – as well as providing an experience-based basis for scientific publication in peer-reviewed journals (see examples from the list of publications in the testimony by PhD student Henrik Kjellmo Larsen, Appendix 2).
Relevant subject areas for students undertaking an internship in the field may be social anthropology, sociology, social geography, political science, migration studies, international relations, English teaching/didactics, pedagogy, psychology, logistics – as well as cultural and development studies. In the case of an internships with a humanitarian organisation as we offer here, however, it is important to be aware of the ethical considerations to be taken for any potential research projects in the field. Performing academic work that directly involves vulnerable groups of people, through interviews etc., could violate the NLA’s guidelines.
You can find more information about NLA on our website Northern Lights Aid, or by following us on social media. If you or your university would like additional documentation, there is a long track-record of well-established cooperation between academic institutions and NLA and similar NGOs to draw upon. As a reference, we can show to the examples of Heidi Mogstad and Henrik Kjellmo Larsen, both from Norway. Their fieldwork in Greece has subsequently led to scientific publications and academic degrees. For Heidi Mogstad’s part, this entails a PhD degree in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge, Autumn 2021. And for Henrik Kjellmo Larsen, one of NLA's three founders, the fieldwork has resulted in a master's degree in development studies, as well as ongoing work on a doctoral thesis in sociology with Monash University in Australia (appendix 2).
Included in the appendix, you can find testimonies of former NLA volunteers made by students at Sciences Po Paris, the University of Leeds, the American University of Paris and Glasgow University (Appendix 1).
At the latter university, the combination of practical training and fieldwork for NLA resulted in a master's degree, completed in 2020. Manon Louis-Puttick examined the volunteers' experiences, and how these helped establish new attitudes and understanding of being displaced. In addition to the rich professional and personal benefits that she explains in her statement in Appendix 1, it can be mentioned that her master's thesis received a "First", and that she has subsequently won the "Professor John Briggs Award", as well as been nominated for the prestigious award from the "Gender and Feminist Geographies Research Group" in the UK.
If this announcement of available internships is of interest, NLA President Rachel Bromell is pleased to be contacted. Bromell has updated knowledge about the organization of daily work in Kavala, and how this can be combined with university studies. She and the rest of the team of international volunteers are happy to facilitate the fulfilment of a tripartite contract, among other things by setting aside time for report writing and supervision from the department with which that the practice students are affiliated.
Rachel Bromell can be reached by phone +44 7936 435892, e-mail: rachel@northernlightsaid.org
You can also contact our HR manager, Giulia Cristaldi by e-mail: giulia@northernlighstaid.org or phone +30 6946551280.
Please note that references and a criminal record certificate are required for everyone applying for an internship at NLA.
Additionally: the volunteer work in Kavala is led by a field coordinator. For longer stays, it is possible to find accommodation in one of the apartments that NLA has at its disposal in the city.
You should be able to work in the field for a minimum of four weeks, even if your efforts are not part of a course of study. We also have no upper age limit for being a field worker, and greatly appreciate all the skills and qualities that our seniors can contribute.
You can fill out the application form as an international volunteer here: Register as a volunteer (google.com)
The signer can also be contacted for questions.
For NLA
Sincerely
Kari Ronge
International volunteer for Northern Lights Aid (NLA) since 2019, based in Norway
mobile + 47 91159123
karironge1@gmail.com
