I’ve been working at the Red Project for almost two months
now and I have about two more months to go. Though I’m half way through my
internship, I still haven’t found out exactly what my set role as an intern is
within the Red Project and this has been a little difficult for me to come to
terms with. Of course I feel like I’m very helpful at times and have a great
part within the staff of 5, but every time I step through the door there are
different tasks thrown my way and no two days are alike. I cannot complain
though because I like the excitement of not having a routine but I do wish
there was more of a structure to my days so I didn’t have to wait around to be
told what to do.
I have surprised myself quite a bit with the tasks I’ve done
throughout this internship. I’ve become certified with the state of Michigan to
test for HIV and this took many long training sessions to do so. So far I
haven’t done any testing on my own, but I can’t wait to share my experiences
once I do. I’ve been surprised at how comfortable I’ve become talking to our
clients and the other people who are curious about our work about safer sex
supplies, syringe access, overdose risk and all the kinds of conversations that
follow those. I’ve been questioned many times why we give out safer sex
supplies and syringes to people, shouldn’t we be focusing on stopping people
from having sex and shooting up drugs instead of encouraging it? Honestly, that
was kind of the initial response I had when I heard about what the Red Project
does. Now that I interact with people who partake in these high risk activities it’s
easier for me to see that they are going to do what they want, but if we can
help them do it in a safer and healthier way we will. I’ve been thanked many
times by our clients and other people in the community for the work we do and
that in itself has been one of the best feelings, knowing I’m apart of
something that’s making such a difference.
Going off of that, I think one of the largest obstacles I
have had to overcome is explaining to people what I do at my internship. When I
explain that I’m training to test for HIV, I get a lot of people making comments like “oh no, better not get it!” or "really, why would you want to do that?" and so on. As well as people questioning why we supply safer sex supplies, Narcan (the drug that reverses opiate drug
overdose) and syringes. People don’t realize how large of public health
issues these are and even though people may not live the lifestyles
we want them to, they still need to be safe and healthy in order to stop
spreading diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis C.
One feedback I’ve gotten from my employer is my great flexibility
with time. There have been nights where I’ve stayed late and worked extra hours
without even thinking about it. I’m happy to do so because I enjoy my time
there very much. I think they really appreciate my dedication because they know
personally in a non-profit world, you have to have passion and dedication in
order to get things done, no matter how long it takes.
These are our new shirts we've created (that come in many different colors, all besides red) and we are selling to bring in more money to our great organization! Below is a link you can visit that tells more about our campaign and the awesome things we do. This is Red, and Red Needs Green. :)
http://redneedsgreen.org
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