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Main Image for Community Action Awards

Community Action Awards

Funding students who make an impact around the world.
Each summer, approximately 25 Bard students receive Community Action Awards (CAA) from the Center for Civic Engagement.
CAAs support student efforts to engage with communities locally, nationally, and internationally by providing funding for participation in unpaid internships that address issues impacting people around the world.

Interested? Apply here by April 22!
Check out Other Funding Opportunities

2021-2022 Community Partner Fellows

Megumi Kivuva (Center for Creative Education), Eve Campbell (Red Hook Village Government), Sarita Fleetwood Bradshaw (Four Corners Community Farm), Samantha Schwartz (Red Hook Community Center), Yuval Elbaz (Red Hook Public Library).

Community Action Award Recipients Summer 2021

Emma Gosset (The Urban Institute), Rose Reiner (T Space), Olivia Tencer (Live Well Kingston), Julia Gloninger (Housing Rights Initiative), Sasha Onyango (Masakhane Center), Sarina Schwartz (Red Hook Public Library), Isa Cava (Germantown Library), Julia Larberg (Franklin Furnace Archive, Inc.), Felicia Flores (Rites of Passage Project), Penelope Bernal (Inclusive Action for the City), Yuval Elbaz (Williamsburg Charter High School), Jasmine Baker (Tivoli Local Library), Huba Zaman (PEN America), Khadija Ghanizada (Bard Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities: Water Quality Analysis), Maty Thiam (Defying Legal Gravity), Amirah Miller (The Art Effect and Mzuzah Charitable Inc.), Kaleigh Lagville-Graham (Hudson Catskill Housing Coalition), Emely Galeano (Ulster Immigration Defense Network), Chrissy Gildersleeve (Hudsonia Research Institute), and May Pocsy (Facets).

Frequently Asked Questions

1. If I haven’t heard from an employer yet, or if I am still deciding where I will intern, can I apply?
Yes! Applicants can submit email confirmations or letters indicating that they are in the process of applying. If granted an award, an applicant must provide final confirmation from an employer before funding is released. Final awards may be adjusted based on estimated costs associated with the final internship site (i.e., international site vs. local site).

2. Can I apply for multiple sites?
Yes, you can. However, final confirmation from an employer must be submitted before funding is released. Only one application per student is necessary with a general overview outlining the potential internship site(s) and how they meet the CAA requirements.

3. How do I know if a site is appropriate?
Most students who receive funding are working at governmental offices or agencies, non-governmental organizations, educational programs, camps or non-profits, media-based centers or community-based non-profit agencies and organizations.  Bard provides many outlets to support individual student projects; therefor, Individual projects are rarely funded through the CAA. The CAA is reserved to support an onsite internship experience with an employer.

4. How can I find a site or an internship?
The CCE ([email protected]) has contacts at a number of internship sites, along with the Career Development Office ([email protected]), parent network and the Alumni/ae Affairs Office ([email protected]). In addition, we encourage you to research organizations in your field of interest.

If you find or already have an organization in mind, look to see if they have a formal application process for internships. Idealist.org compiles internship listings as does CDO’s Handshake database.

5. How are Community Action Award winners determined?
A committee comprised of faculty and staff from various departments meet to review the applications. Applications take about three weeks to process.

6. Do I need to keep the CCE updated on my internship once I am a Community Action Award recipient?
Yes, we want to hear from you! All CAA recipients are required to write two blog posts for the CCE over the course of your internship and participate in the CAA Engagement Series upon your return to campus. The series includes CAA awardee sponsored events, talks, screenings, panels, etc. The focus of the series is on the issue the internship addressed. For example, if an internship is focused on science education for girls, a CAA recipient may host a panel on women in STEM.

All interns are asked to submit a supervisor’s evaluation form within two weeks of the end of the internship. In addition, feel free to send us an occasional update to let us know how things are going; we love hearing about your amazing work.

7. I’m planning on doing an academic program over the summer for which I will receive academic credit or my internship site requirements include payment to the organization—can I use the CAA to fund the tuition or payment?
We do not provide CAA grants to be used for tuition prices or to cover costs of certificate programs or to pay internship sites.

8. I won’t be returning to Bard after my internship—can I still apply?
No, sorry.  All CAA recipients must return to Bard for at least one semester after the planned internship.

9. I have other questions that aren’t answered here—is there someone I can ask?
Please feel free to e-mail the Center for Civic Engagement at [email protected] with any additional questions.
 

Other Summer Funding Opportunities

The Scale Project: Scale Internship Equity Award (SIEA)

The Scale Project Internship Award intends to encourage students from lower socioeconomic statuses to accept summer internships by providing substantial stipends. There is an inherent class privilege that comes with accepting unpaid or low-pay internships, excluding low-income students from pursuing such opportunities and acquiring work experience. The SIEA allows students to gain valuable experience, skills, knowledge, and connections within their chosen fields without the burden of having to financially support themselves due to the lack of, or insufficient amount of, payment. 

This Award provides financial support for unpaid interns within any field or industry to compensate students for their labor while also taking into consideration the myriad of costs involved with working an internship (cost of living, WiFi, various softwares and technology, etc.).  This Award hopes to enable first-generation, low-income students who may otherwise be unable to seek or accept unpaid internships to do so without financial stress. 

We ask that the internships span a minimum of 6 weeks, with at least 8 hours of work per week. We are able to provide five, $2,000 awards. 
Interested?

APPLY  HERE

BRAVE

BRAVE BRAVE is currently accepting applications for Summer 2022 BRAVE Summer Stipends internship awards. 

THIS IS NOT AN INTERNSHIP WITH BRAVE. THIS IS AN INTERNSHIP OF YOUR CHOOSING.  
There is a 4 week stipend award for $1,200 and an 8 week stipend award for $2,200.
This money is meant to support a non-paid internship in violence, trauma, rape crisis, mental health, or advocacy. Your internship period must be a minimum of four weeks or eight weeks (respectively) in duration and MUST be supervised. Two internship awards will be given out for the summer of 2022. The internship award will NOT be granted for independent work, nor for tuition at ANY institution. Internships do not earn credit, although they may be recorded on the college transcript. Each recipient MUST submit a supervisory evaluation at the midpoint and end of the internship. Only students planning to return to Bard next semester may apply.
Due 4/25/22.
 
Apply here.  

Bard Center for the Study of Hate

Since 2015, Bard students have participated in a summer internship program about hate. After a preparatory text study on hate, students spend the summer with a nongovernmental organization, not only working against hatred, but also examining how that organization understands and addresses hatred, how it measures success, what additional scholarship would be useful for its work, and writing a report of their findings and analysis (past reports through 2019 are here). Interns support each other over the summer with regular online discussions. Students have interned with the Southern Poverty Law Center, PEN America, the Montana Human Rights Network, Political Research Associates, the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights First, Women Wage Peace, and elsewhere. (Current list of possible placements [subject to change] with direct links to their websites, is at bottom of this page.)

View More > >

Bard College Center for Civic Engagement
Bard College
Campus Road, PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, New York 12504-5000
[email protected]
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