Mercado Global

Mercado Global
Staff Intern

Location: Panajachel, Guatemala
Housing: Intern must secure housing with assistance from local staff and the McCulloch Center
Duration: June through August (as long as possible)

Mercado Global is a non-profit organization that promotes community-driven development in Latin America's most rural and economically-disadvantaged communities by linking women artisan cooperatives to the U.S. market through a model that provides fair wage income, training, and investments in local educational projects.

Mercado Global will place an intern for their Guatemala office. This placement will provide an opportunity to explore fair trade and international development issues from the perspective of the communities and cooperatives supported by the U.S. fair trade movement. The placement, in Panajachel, Guatemala (about two hours drive from Guatemala City), offers the opportunity to assist in areas such as financial and business management support to our partner cooperatives, social impact assessment, grant research, or program development. The internship will offer opportunities to work directly with artist cooperatives, particularly in the area of training, which can include quality control, division of raw materials among cooperative members, savings programs, payment oversight, basic literacy, and generally assisting in the development of stronger and more effective organizational structures. The internship will combine general clerical work with a larger independent project, to be determined depending on the intern's abilities and interests, in one of the following areas:

1. Social Impact Assessment Program Intern: help collect, compile and analyze data; help improve assessment tool for future use. Must be willing to travel to outlying communities to collect data.
2. Artisans Training Program Intern: help improve manual and visual tools used in workshops with artisans; help assist staff in conducting workshops.
3. Development Intern: help collect and compile information on foundations, individual donors, and corporations; maintain donor database; assist in drafting, formatting and distributing newsletters.
4. Cooperative Accompaniment Intern: help teach cooperative members to sign their own names and read. Must be willing to travel, visiting a different community every 2 weeks roughly. Contact, request and facilitate the support of foundations that run capacity building programs.

Qualifications Required: Spanish proficiency, adaptability, strong organizational and research skills, proficiency with Microsoft Word and Excel.

To apply. submit the Universal Application Form by February 27, 2009. All applicants MUST meet with Jale Okay, Director of International Experiential Learning, by February 20, 2009 for a pre-application meeting. Please call the McCulloch Center at x2072 to schedule an appointment. For additional questions, contact Jale Okay.