SEHD occasionally provides opportunities to students—local and international—to work and learn cashing in on its experiences and resources. Some of the recent successful interns who spent time with SEHD productively are:
(i) Ms. Amy Koenig, University of Massachusetts Amherst USA: An undergraduate at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst pursuing a double degree in Environmental Sciences, and Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences (Food Systems Track), Amy had her internship from September to December 2009. She lived and worked in Garo villages (Pirgachha, Rajghati and Chunia in particular) in Modhupur sal forest area and Dhaka. Her interest was sustainable and organic agriculture in the forest villages that are faced with massive ecological challenges. SEHD has been working in Modhupur for the past 15 years. While with SEHD, she spent most of her time in field. She lived with villagers, worked closely with them and the SEHD staff. She produced several insightful writings on ecological and sustainable agriculture and their scopes; prepared plant species list in the Modhupur forest and forest villages, crop guide, descriptions of common pesticides, and suggestions for future directions as regards ecological farming. She also helped in writing and editing English articles for SEHD publications. Her work has significantly enriched SEHD knowledge pool on environment and sustainable agriculture, which is being used in developing, promoting and spreading organic farming among the villagers in Modhupur.
(ii) Ms. Aneeka Malik, an undergraduate B.Sc. student of University of Toronto at Scarborough: She worked with SEHD as an intern from 16 June to 16 August 2004. During her assignment with SEHD, Malik helped in editing, translating and preparing (i) a number of chapters of a book on the ethnic communities, (ii) reports published in SEHD's magazine, Earth Touch, (iii) a survey report on shrimp fry collection, and (iv) a number of administrative reports.
(iii) Mr. Alex Dodson, a graduate student from University of Texas at Austin, USA: He worked with SEHD in 2007. He had assignment to assist English language editing as well as writing articles with his research findings on lives and livelihoods of ethnic communities of Bangladesh. Alex Dodson is getting engaged with SEHD again from April 2010 as he is visiting Bangladesh for a year as a Fulbright fellow for PhD thesis work. Some of his write-ups will be published in the SEHD publications.
(iv) Ms. Asfara Ahmed, a student of Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB): She was engaged as an intern for six weeks with SEHD in 2007. During her assignment with SEHD, she had been assigned primarily to investigate and analyse the environmental concerns related to pulp and paper industry in Bangladesh. She also assisted in gathering information on climate change in Bangladesh. Her work on environmental pollution in the pulp and paper industry will be published in a book.
