My Internship at Al Jidara

One of determining factors that led me to choose CIEE was that it offered an opportunity to get an internship. After a little bit of confusion and last minute running around I finally got placed at Al Jidara! Al Jidara is an economic development firm. When I first heard “economic development firm” my first reaction was uuuuh who doing what now? Al Jidara works almost exclusively with the government of Jordan, and regional and local governments, to implement programs that help expand the economy of Jordan. Usually a big international organization will have a project in the country and needs a local counterpart and Al Jidara is that local counterpart. However, since they are now expanding to the UAE and already do some work in the West Bank they will start bidding for contracts on their own instead of being just the on the ground helpers.

We were forewarned that working in Jordan was very different that working in the United States, that many previous students just end up frustrated. With this in mind I was surprised when we had specific job description, deadlines, and what seems like a functioning work environment. Another CIEE student, Kendrick, and I will be working on developing the content of their website to keep up with the international expansion. As it is, the website is outdated and does not have that fresh look that will attract clients. Since the company is going in a new direction, the website needs to do the same.

Kendrick and I have been researching other development firms’ websites and will be giving recommendations on changes to the content and style of the website. We’re not doing the actual HTML but rather doing research so Al Jidara can keep up with the times. I think this will be perfect actually because since I am learning the history of the company and all of their pervious projects I am basically learning the economic history of Jordan, which is such a major part of the political history. It will be great research for my thesis. I am comparing Korea and Jordan and economy will definitely be a major point so I am excited!

The work environment seems very Western compared to my expectations. Part of the deal of getting an internship is also attending a class that has a few readings, which so far have just given detailed descriptions of the disasters of what Jordan calls NGOs. Al Jidara is nothing like this. All of their work is conducted in English first of all, so frustration due to language barrier is not an issue. Everyone seems to be productive, there is no chaos, women are wearing tank tops in the office, it seems very….what I am used to (you know, with all of that office work experience I have…). Regardless I think it will be a really productive internship. We are already giving a presentation on Sunday on our recommendations of the basic structure and layout of the website. The nice thing about interning here is since people are not used to the concept of someone working for free we get much more involved in the company than the typical scanning and copying job an intern in the US might have to put up with.

I am really excited to just have another contact point with Jordanians, especially since it is in a completely different setting than the University. There is a lot to learn about life here and the more I get involved the better, more authentic experience I will have : )