29 September 2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After high school graduation, students may prepare themselves going to college or taking a gap year by exploring the world or doing a part time job. Instead, Pim Singhatiraj, a 17-year-old girl whom just graduated from high school, chose to do an internship at Amnesty International Thailand. Let\u2019s find out why by this interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What brought a 17-year-old girl to Amnesty?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I just graduated a high school. Ever since a few years ago I always have this dream of taking a gap semester or a gap year before going to college. So instead of going straight away to university I want and I want time to do other thing. Basically I applied to a university, I got accepted, I\u2019m going to Middlebury College in the Vermont in the US and I\u2019m really excited about that. So I have this time to fill up, and I always dream to filling that gap year of traveling. But half a year of traveling is very excessive. So I tried to find other way to fill up and I thought of doing internship. And I chose AI because I have been involved with AI in high school for 2 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Could you tell me more about the club?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I graduated from International School Bangkok. At international school, they tend to have a lot of clubs and Amnesty was one of them. The first year I joined I was just a member, but the second year I became an officer. So I played a larger role in planning events and planning the W4R event and everything. And I knew P\u2019 May (Activism officer) through Amnesty at ISB. I remembered her telling us if anyone wanted to do an internship you can contact her, and I did. I\u2019m really excited to have this opportunity of 2 months of work experiences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What kind of activities that the club has?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ISB hosted a write for rights event every single year and we call it light up night. So that\u2019s always the event that happens. I think with every year it changes, last year we focused a bit on refugees at the end of the year. P’May brought them in and we got to talk to them. But AI and ISB was really good is that it helps students learn more about activism. Youth is activism is the idea of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why are you interested in human rights work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because I\u2019ve always been interested in the social sciences and humanities, that\u2019s what I will study in university. Even though human rights work and NGO work is something that I\u2019m learning about right now. I think eventually I want to go to education and become a teacher and teach at international school. But Why Amnesty and Human rights, I think because I have a strong connection with AI in high school. And also I did Model for United Nations for 2 years. And I love history and politics. Basically everything in high school led me into something in human rights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Daily roles and responsibilities<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I work with Activism, P\u2019May is my supervisor. Right now I\u2019m working on an event that is upcoming this Sunday. I wrote a proposal, I checked up a location for my supervisor. I\u2019m buying materials, I\u2019m thinking of activities and everything. So that\u2019s a rather big task. But smaller tasks that I have, writing emails, reading actions curricular and summarizing them for my supervisor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What do you think about negative perception of activist as a radical?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The thing is I kinda accept the fact that I am more radical than Thai people so that doesn\u2019t bother me that much. Because I can\u2019t pretend and be conservative that\u2019s not who I am. Because I was raised with more open-minded values. I know that activism has a negative connotation but I was raised in an international community which makes it ok for me to be different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Human rights issue that you\u2019re interested right now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A lot of my work centers around refugees, and especially because I attend 3 -4 days workshop about the issue. It\u2019s something I become knowledgeable in more that I was in the past. Maybe not compared to the others in the office. It\u2019s something that I can feel like can work on because I\u2019ve been to the meeting with Asylum Access Thailand. And now I\u2019m planning an event for refugees for their community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Challenging part so far since doing the internship<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first week was hard because even though I\u2019ve done short term internships before, but this something that I had committed to for 2 months. The work that my supervisor assigned me, it was good work, but the thing is I didn\u2019t know how to continue with it. And I could have asked my supervisor for more information for help, but I saw her busy with her own work. So I was sitting there, kind of miserable (laugh). But after a while I started asking questions, and she started trusting more in me, she started giving me some her own workload like small tasks, and once she gave me more tasks I felt a lot more my work was full filling which is a really good thing. But that\u2019s also challenging because now I\u2019m busy. Someday are very busy and I go home with a headache, but at least I know that my work is full filing so it\u2019s ok (laugh).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What does the term \u201cHuman rights\u201d mean to you? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think it\u2019s always a heard question to answer because it\u2019s a large concept. I think of world where everyone has human rights, there will be no longer a day in which people open the news and see something like ethnic cleansing that\u2019s going in Myanmar right now. If people don\u2019t see those things and they don\u2019t think \u201cOh this happened in history, but why is it going now?, we need to learn from these mistakes but it keeps happening and happening\u201d If one day we no longer think and see stuff like that on the news, I think that\u2019s a day where human rights are achieved universally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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