Name: Doudou Tshiyena
Class Year: 2024
Major: Psychology at Bryn Mawr, Anthropology at Haverford
Hometown: Phoenix, AZ
Internship Organization: Aliento
Job Title: Community Programs and Outreach Intern
Location: Phoenix, Arizona
Hello, I’m Doudou Tshiyena, and I have spent my summer interning at Aliento, a nonprofit community organization based in Phoenix, Arizona. I applied for this internship in accordance with my fellowship with The Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law of the Yale Law School. Since the goal of the fellowship is to work with the public through various advocacy efforts, I originally spoke to a mentor I worked with in high school for advice on where to apply. He suggested interning with Aliento, because it was created and led by directly impacted youth and allies of DACA and undocumented people. Our goals range from helping the community heal from the various laws that put these communities at risk, and advocating for laws that protect migrants regardless of their status.
One of the tasks I had during my internship was holding the annual art gallery, as it celebrates the local community and the creations they’ve made in the past year. This was the first formal gallery held in person since the pandemic has started, and the pandemic has taken a toll on migrant communities in ways that are unfamiliar to citizens of the U.S. Some people have had their cases on pause, difficulty accessing equity healthcare due to their status, and a toll on their mental health dealing with a pandemic on top of their status. Outside of campaigning for SCR 1044, Prop 308, and constantly advocating for equal, legal opportunities to education, we find time to instill hope and healthy coping mechanisms through art and support groups. Being a psychology major at Bryn Mawr, this was really important to me to be able to see how art and therapy heals, even in the most technical cases because of what external circumstances, such as laws and restrictions put actual people through. Not just reading about it through the most technical lens, such as the recent 5th circuit DACA hearing.
This affected our office tremendously, so being able to put together this gallery and create the artflow of the last three years of what a small fraction of the community went through was very meaningful to me and was a vulnerable part of exploring what it means to connect with the people behind the policies the government affects. When I was called up to the front of the audience of impacted community members to be congratulated for curating the art gallery on top of our tasks for the summer, it showed me how my passion and efforts for public advocacy in all forms paid off, all while coming from an immigrant background. I found that I could find intersectionality in all I want to do as someone who wants to work with a diverse array of communities outside of the ones I grew up in. Especially with the emphasis Aliento puts on mental health, it showed me how I hope to explore that part of my future work alongside legal advocacy of vulnerable groups.
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