Summer Internship with the Office of Environmental Policy & Planning Coordination (OEPPC)

The two most enjoyable and rewarding requirements of my OEPPC summer internship were identical in scope but different in scale. One involved building the knowledge resource base and confidence of a single person, while the other involved laying groundwork for a 12-month climate change awareness communications strategy targeting the entire population of the Marshall Islands. One bled into the other, since the 12-month communications strategy was drafted by the Climate Change Coordinator and myself. We wanted to engender knowledgable discussions on the extreme vulnerability of coral atoll nations and the adaptation choices available to the Marshall Islands to deal with the imminent impacts of climate change. I soon learned that in doing this, we’d often begin to develop knowledgable discussions of our own on these topics. By the time we submitted the plan for the OEPPC Director’s endorsement, it was clear to me and my colleague that we had laid a solid foundation on which to achieve our goal. Moreover, our close working relationship was a rich learning experience that I will continue to reflect on in the years the come. At the conclusion of the internship, I left the OEPPC confident that the Marshall Islands is definitely on the right track for climate change preparation.