PESA prides itself on the services we offer but, of course, they’re only as good as the people who provide them. As such, we go to great lengths to train all of our colleagues, and that includes participants in our college internship program.
Our Spring 2022 cohort comes from seven college campuses, including California State University Long Beach, Los Angeles Pierce College, University of Redlands, California State University Northridge, Santa Monica College and Loyola Marymount University. There are also several interns from the University of Southern California’s Joint Educational Project (JEP) which is one of the oldest and largest service-learning programs in the United States. The internship is 13 weeks and consists of three major phases: legal, educational and outreach.
“The legal phase of the curriculum aims to provide undergraduate students opportunities of advocacy through legal and professional means,” says Assistant Director of Internships Amanda Flores (above). “Interns receive firsthand knowledge of the legal system from our executive director, Seymour Amster.”
In the second phase of the program, interns focus on the education aspect of PESA’s mission. “They are asked to consider the issues concerning today’s youth,” says Flores “and create an interactive educational presentation that informs and inspires youth to think differently. It is our hope that our efforts to educate can empower youth to be productive members of society.”