Name: Lillian Ernst
Class Year: 2024
Major: International Studies
Minor: French and Francophone Studies
Hometown: Santa Rosa, California
Internship Organization: Youth Art and Self-Empowerment Project
Job Title: Team member
Location: Philadelphia, PA
What's happening at your internship? We would love to hear what kind of work you are doing!
The Youth Art and Self-empowerment Project (YASP) is a small nonprofit, and my priority is working with the restorative justice diversion program Healing Futures. Healing Futures works with the District Attorney’s Office to divert criminal cases of young people away from the court system, giving the young people an opportunity to amend the harm they’ve done in a more holistic, healing way than what jail or prison can offer. I spend my days helping wherever I can, and this typically means performing as much research and outreach as possible. I am specifically researching and performing outreach to other nonprofits, social service resources, and community members that the young people we work with and their families can benefit from. I am building a resource guide as well as making phone calls and sending emails to gain as many allies for YASP and Healing Futures as possible. Lastly, I have researched and helped establish a database of grant opportunities to which YASP has the ability to apply.
Why did you apply for this internship?
I knew I wanted to work with YASP and Healing Futures specifically because I feel very passionately that our current domestic and international justice systems are failing to truly deliver justice, mostly because they were not designed to do so. Healing Futures is one of many diversion and restorative justice programs working to protect young, underserved, and majority Black and brown children from the incarceration system designed to limit their opportunities in life. As an international studies major, I have had the opportunity to study the many forms of justice, incarceration, and policing that exist and have existed across the world. These studies have confirmed for me that our current systems are failing, and I plan to pursue a career in the field of restorative justice and abolition. Healing Futures has been a wonderful chance for me to begin gaining experience in this field.
Can you talk about the skills you are learning and why they are important to you?
Besides invaluable research and communication skills, which will be easily transferable to any profession, I have had the opportunity to work with some of the people who have been most directly impacted by the injustices of our current systems. It is one thing to study and understand the inner workings of global structures of power, but working closely with those impacted has been a chance for me to better learn where I can place myself best to be of service to the causes I care about.
What is most rewarding about your internship?
This position has given me an incredible opportunity to build a plethora of relationships; with the young people we work with, with my coworkers and supervisors, and with community members and creators of other nonprofits all over the city of Philadelphia. The human connection I have been able to build, despite spending the majority of my time doing research in some form or another, has been an incredibly rewarding experience.
Visit the Summer Internship Stories page to read more about student internship experiences.