Hi everyone! My name is Candice Huo from the University of Ottawa in Canada. My major study area is psychology, and I also minor in management. It’s my great honor to have this amazing internship experience with LAT.
We mainly focused on resource mobilization during the first half of this internship. I’ve applied for several grants and await further contact from those organizations. Also, I’ve created a ‘Gofundme’ link for LAT. Luckily, this link could work for a long time for LAT. The link shows here:
In addition, we’ve completed the proposal of the European Commission on Human Rights and Democracy together. It was a great challenge for all of us. Although this was the first time for all of us to apply for an EU grant, I believed that we would have a great result through our hard work.
For the second half of this internship, we focused more on researching curriculum models to determine whether some models could be transplanted to Lesotho. I did my research on the Chinese and Japanese curriculum models. The similarity between these two curriculum models is that both systems offer students free compulsory nine-year education from primary to junior high school. One of the most apparent differences is that the Japanese curriculum focuses much earlier on computer programming than the Chinese. They cultivated their children with a sense of the STEM field from a young age, providing a good foundation for their future studies.
Katherine is a third-year student at the University of Ottawa, completing her bachelor’s degree in International Development and Globalization. Thanks to the International Internship program at the university and their partnership with the Canadian NGO Alternatives, Katherine has been able to intern with the Lesotho Association of Teachers (LAT). In the past, Katherine has been involved in different international non-for-profit organizations. In 2019, Katherine lived on a teacher’s compound while volunteering at a local primary school for six months on Ovalau Island. During this time, Katherine worked with teachers and community members from Tokou village to build a library program that encouraged English literacy skills for students. She also volunteered in Tanzania in 2017, helping rebuild sections of a local elementary school. Although this is Katherine’s first experience working for a union, she continues to use these experiences with education in her work during the summer. She has already learned so much from the leaders at LAT.
Her work at LAT is focused on building resource mobilization for the organization. This includes finding, writing and working with LAT team members to apply for grants and opportunities to get involved in the international development community. Some of these include the United Nations Feminist Coalition and the European Commission for Human Rights and Democracy. Additionally, Katherine is aiding LAT in researching curriculum innovation from other countries in Europe and Scandinavia, to help inform Lesotho curriculum methods. She hopes to continue working towards these goals and has been so honoured to be a part of the efforts LAT has put forward.