Scholarship for Immersive Internships in Spain

¡SpainWorks! is a new scholarship program that helps students increase their Spanish language proficiency, enhance their understanding of global issues, and better position themselves for international careers.  Selected UW students will travel to León, Spain in winter 2023, live with a local family, intern for a local organization, and fully immerse themselves in all León has to offer.

UW has a long history of engagement in the León community, which allowed us to cultivate an array of internships that provide students with a rich learning experience.  Interns are supported by the Universidad de Leon, UW León Center, UW Career & Internship Center, and UW Study Abroad.  The scholarship covers transportation, housing, language instruction, administrative fees, and modest living expenses.

The program’s first intern just wrapped up and had a wonderful experience interning in the press office at the León City Council.

Applications for winter 2023 will be accepted from April 1, 2022 to May 1, 2022.  You can read more about the program and apply here.

We anticipate offering internships in three areas.

Social media

Be part of a communication team, with an emphasis on social media.  This internship will be hosted by one of these two organizations: 1) An entrepreneurial international organization at the University of León that is re-imagining and designing university-level education as part of multi-nation project, or 2) The office of the mayor of León, Spain, which has an ambitious agenda to create a vibrant “smart” city and the communication team focuses on a wide array of city issues.

An internship in either organization would involve challenging and interesting work in social media and in communication in general. Projects will be quite diverse, but could include monitoring existing social media outlets, and creating content for those outlets as well as helping with a wide array of media-related projects in each organization.

Intermediate to advanced Spanish proficiency is needed to intern at the university and fluency is needed to intern at the mayor’s office.  A background and/or experience in media and communication and social media, in particular, would be especially useful for both opportunities.

Education and immigrants

Join the education and immigrant support team at a León based organization that reaches Spanish to immigrants.  Intermediate to advanced Spanish proficiency needed.   Background in Education, or in teaching a second language, would be useful but not required.  Many of the immigrants speak some English, so projects/tasks could include preparation of materials (in English, Spanish) for an important nationality exam, as well as assisting Spanish instruction staff.

Camino de Santiago

Join the team at a León-based organization that provides support to pilgrims who are following the Camino de Santiago (a pilgrimage route dating back more than a thousand years, with tens of thousands of pilgrims from around the world coming through León annually). The Camino de Santiago has a rich and long religious and cultural history.

The association draws on the work of many volunteers who help with a wide variety of projects, including creation of publications on behalf of the association, development of guides and information resources in English and Spanish for pilgrims, interface with pilgrims needing information, maintenance of a small library, maintenance of the Camino trail in the province of León, hosting an annual concert, a film festival and a photography exhibition.

Advanced Spanish proficiency is required.  An understanding of the importance of the Camino – and of its history and culture — would be valuable for any intern.

By Briana Randall (She/Her)
Briana Randall (She/Her) Executive Director