Name: Fer Hurtado
Class Year: 2025
Major: International Studies
Hometown: Monterrey, Mexico
Internship Organization: Puentes de Salud
Job Title: Summer Camp Education Intern
Location: Philadelphia, PA
What's happening at your internship? We would love to hear what kind of work you are doing!
I'm working with Puentes de Salud, a service organization in Philadelphia that supports migrants and refugees, particularly from Latin America, as an education intern. The Puentes de Salud Education branch serves youth ages three to eighteen and their families through out-of-school-time programming that centers on multilingualism, academic support, and the exploration of creative and cultural practices. I assist the Puentes Hacia el Futuro Supervisor in restructuring the Puentes summer program. Puentes Hacia el Futuro is the branch of the education program that works with students in elementary school. I am researching the best practices of language justice and consent-based learning to integrate these into the curriculum for next year. As the themes explored in the summer camp speak to culture, identity, and heritage, we are structuring the summer camp to empower students and inspire confidence.
Why did you apply for this internship?
I applied because this summer I wanted to work in a community-oriented organization to create meaningful and positive long-term impacts. Also, I was inspired by the Puentes mission to commit to community development and bettering the education for Latinx youth in South Philadelphia. Puentes believes that education is crucial to promote community development and social welfare. They see that education is a human right that Latinx children are often denied by educational institutions because they do not often acknowledge the background of the students; meaning the education system fails to properly give the children of immigrants education. This internship was an opportunity for me to bring Puentes’ vision to life.
What has been your favorite part of this internship?
My favorite part of the internship has been the opportunity to work with the people in the arts and culture department at Puentes. I have met people from my country with different perspectives and cultures than mine and being able to collaborate and learn from them has been a really valuable experience. They have taught me new skills and lessons through art by working on projects that aim to build a community which has been very cool to be a part of.
What is most rewarding about your internship?
As Puentes addresses the adverse structural, economic, and social conditions that profoundly affect the prosperity of this community, every opportunity in community development has allowed me to understand the population that I am working with, so being able to contribute to the betterment of community health in any way I can has been the most rewarding. Working with an organization that cares so much for the community and that seeks to implement practices of language justice not only in academics but the work space as well has been inspiring. At Puentes, they are challenging the idea that deep and long-standing inequalities are acceptable realities within our society, so contributing to this mission to create an environment of equitable access to health care, education, and empowerment exists has been incredibly meaningful to me.
Visit the Summer Internship Stories page to read more about student internship experiences.