INTERNSHIP • PROGRAM

ICAN has hosted 23 interns from across the world since 2017, ranging from high school students and undergraduates interested in Women, Peace, and Security to graduate students and young professionals seeking additional experience. Three interns became members of ICAN’s fulltime team.

Over the last five years, ICAN has professionalized the program to provide compensation for our interns, an orientation program, and tailored individual learning goals and evaluations. With our small team, ICAN accomplishes so much more with our interns’ commitment and positive energy. They are forever part of our ICAN and WASL network.

Working at ICAN was an amazing experience, the entire team is so dedicated to their work and to building inclusive and sustainable peace. It was so heartwarming and unique to see how the ICAN team builds relationships of trust with so many women peacebuilders across the world, creating a space to support them and amplify their work but also a space to build a network and as so many WASL members called it, a family of peacebuilders! I’ve learnt so much from everyone at ICAN and in the WASL network, and everyday I feel inspired by the work they all do!”

ICAN’s bottom-up approach to both funding and programming made me reflect on the importance of respecting local agency, local knowledge, and local needs of the partners. The conventional assumption made by many multilateral organizations and international community that local people lack necessary expertise, extensive knowledge, and specialized skills to build peace within their own communities often tends to be false. ICAN’s work proves it. For ICAN, amplifying women peacebuilders’ voices is critical. During my internship, while being involved in different projects, I could not stop but think how important ICAN’s work is in different parts of the world. I hope that someday ICAN will expand and cover even more countries.”

- Saadat Musabaeva, Kyrgyzstan; IPF Program Intern, 2022