Madeline Kaplan ’21

Reclaim Childhood, Jordan

Me at camp in Zarqa.

I spent eight weeks this summer working in Amman, Jordan, as an intern at a non-profit called Reclaim Childhood (RC). Multiple students from Williams have previously spent summers interning with this organization. I heard about Reclaim Childhood not only from former interns, but also from Professor Bernhardsson, Chair of Arabic Studies and Brown Professor of History, and my major advisor. Dr. Bernhardsson has been involved with Reclaim Childhood since its founding and is currently an active member of their Board of Directors.

At Williams, I recently declared a double-major in History and Arabic Studies. Additionally, for the past four summers before this one, I worked as a counselor at an all-girls summer camp in the Berkshires. This summer, I decided that it was time to branch out from summer camp and push myself outside of my comfort zone, to try something new, test the skills that I have developed over many years in a different setting, and also hopefully learn new things and gain more knowledge. After hearing about Reclaim Childhood and their work and mission, it seemed like an incredible opportunity that would allow me to accomplish all of these things. It presented as the perfect intersection of my academic and personal interests. I hoped that it would allow me to continue to develop my Arabic language skills and learn about Jordanian culture. It also would allow me to share my love of sports with the overall goal of empowering girls and women, something that I hold close to my heart.

Reclaim Childhood runs programing all year, in the form of sports practices and teen leadership sessions. They hire local women as coaches who run these practices and are from the same communities as the participants of Reclaim Childhood. During the summer, programming consists of four weeks of three-hour practices, Sunday through Thursday. At these practices, four groups of about 80 girls are broken up by placing girls of similar ages together to cycle through stations devoted to basketball, soccer, Frisbee, and dance. In the middle of practice, there is a snack break of fruit, and at the end of practice, the girls eat lunch together. Two of the four weeks of this programming occur in Amman, while the other two weeks of this programming occur in Zarqa (a city about 40 minutes outside of Amman).

My work as an intern was multifold, and the entire experience, both working as an intern and living with the other interns in Amman, was one of the most exhausting, but also one of the most rewarding and valuable experiences I have ever had. One thing that was super special to me about this internship was working with the ten incredible women coaches that RC employs. The coaches not only teach the sport, but also act as strong female mentors to the girls. Importantly, my role at camp was not to be this role model for participants, nor was it to run the practices. Instead, it was to assist the coaches in whatever capacity they needed. The coaches ran the show, and the other interns and I were simply there to help them out and stay in the background. In this way, the coaches (women similar to the participants) were the foremost mentors for the girls.

In the afternoons, work shifted away from the hands-on camp program to office and administrative non-profit work. Led by an incredible supervisor named Jessie who is the Director of Jordan Programming (all that RC does in Jordan would not be possible without her), we helped with the administrative side of Reclaim Childhood affairs. We worked in the office on monitoring and evaluation, social media and fundraising campaigns, and research and grant-writing. Additionally, Jessie would bring in professionals to talk to us about various topics. For example, a man from the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) came to talk to us about the state of the refugee crisis in Jordan. We attended a presentation at the King Hussein Cancer Center about their ground-breaking work and took a tour of their newly-built, state-of-the-art facility. We also were privileged to have a multitude of representatives from other non-profits working in Jordan come speak with us about their work. Furthermore, we talked with a graduate student about graduate school and with a woman working in the security sector about jobs, and specifically working as a woman, in that sector.

There were three different projects that I worked on most in depth throughout the summer. First, a co-intern and I were given access to a compilation of writings used for grant proposals. We were tasked with creating a more organized, clear, and concise “Grant Stock Answers” document to pull from when applying for grants. For example, one section was titled “The RC Team” and consisted of sections on coaches, players, and community leaders. For each of these sections, I wrote a description and then under this narrative, added relevant statistics that my co-intern and I had previously researched.

Another project that I worked on was finding new grants for which Reclaim Childhood could potentially apply. This entailed searching grant databases, reading through the grant guidelines, researching the foundations, organizations, etc. sponsoring these grants, and then (if they seemed like a potential opportunity for RC), categorizing the information. I have been informed that in the fall of 2019, RC will be applying for at least one of the grants that I found.

Finally, perhaps my biggest project this summer consisted of re-organizing and updating Reclaim Childhood’s donor database. It is crucial that non-profits know who their donors are and what types of populations they should be appealing to when running fundraising and social media campaigns. RC recently switched over to a new platform to better track their supporters. It was my job to go through and update this platform with relevant information on these supporters. This included basic information like full name, age, gender, job, etc., but also looking to see if the contacts we have are receiving RC emails, and in what capacity different people are donating to RC. This project was a massive undertaking and time commitment; however, it was crucial in helping RC understand who their supporters are and their capacity.

My apartment in Amman.

I am incredibly grateful to the Class of 1972 for allowing me the opportunity to participate in this internship program. I learned so much each and every day. I learned about the intricacies of non-profit and NGO work behind the scenes, and also about the hands-on aspects of what they do. We had discussions about the more challenging and controversial sides of Western non-profit work in foreign places (for example the white savior aspect of this work that non-profits should be ever-vigilant in working to combat). I also learned how important RC is to the local community here. Additionally, I learned so much about the realities of the refugee crisis in Jordan, and I was able to practice my Arabic skills and learn a little bit more of the local dialect. I learned, and worked on so many new skills that will surely help me as I continue to be a student at Williams and eventually enter the ‘real world.’ I am looking forward to spending more time in Amman with my study abroad program this fall. This was the perfect introduction to life in Amman, as it allowed me to create a network of support in Jordan and adjust to living abroad. Thank you again to the Class of 1972 for funding this incredibly valuable experience.