Interview with NP Intern Yiran "Sharon" Sun
Yiran "Sharon" Sun is a financial and administrative support intern for Nonviolent Peaceforce. As a small organization, we rely immensely on the support interns and volunteers and we are tremendously grateful for their assistance. While it is difficult to put a monetary value on volunteer time, the Corporation for National and Community Service estimated that a volunteer's time in the US averaged to be worth approximately $23.57 an hour in 2015. By that calculation, Sharon has made a contribution of almost $20,000 to the organization in the past year.
Over the past year, Sharon has provided invaluable support to Nonviolent Peaceforce and even chose to forgo a paid internship to intern with Nonviolent Peaceforce. Sharon is originally from China and chose to study abroad at the University of Wisconsin- River Falls. While looking to do an internship for her Bachelor of Science, with a major in Business Administration, Sharon came across an internship job posting for Nonviolent Peaceforce on Volunteermatch.com.
(Published May 9, 2016)
While traditionally her program only allows paid internships, Sharon felt an internship at Nonviolent Peaceforce would be more beneficial and more closely related to her degree. Because of the small size of the organization she could gain more hands-on experience and learn a greater variety of accounting skills.
As part of her Christian values, Sharon feels it is important to do work to help others. She appreciates that Nonviolent Peaceforce is helping the global community to achieve peace and although she can't go into the field, Sharon is happy to provide administrative help.
In fact, Sharon stayed on after she completed the hours she needed for school because she was so passionate about the work Nonviolent Peaceforce does; she also thought it would be useful to gain more experience by staying for an entire accounting cycle.
If there is one thing Sharon could share with others about her experience at Nonviolent Peaceforce, it's that she is grateful for the welcoming environment. She enjoys that the US office is multi-cultural, with interns and staff from around the world and she is able to share about her culture with others openly and freely.
Recently, Sharon was accepted at Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities for her Master's degree and we will have to say farewell as she continues her educational journey. We are so grateful she was able to spend some of that time with us.