Jeff Metcalf Summer 2025 Metcalf Clinic

This internship is part of the University’s Jeff Metcalf Internship Program. Click here to learn more about the program, its benefits, and the UChicago community of supporters. By applying to this internship you agree to follow the Student Recruiting Guidelines. This position is not benefits eligible.

Internship Time Commitment: approximately 20 hours/week, 8 weeks

Remote: Interns are expected to work during organization’s business hours of operations

Please make sure that if selected for an interview, you communicate to your prospective host organization/employer where you will be physically located during the internship as your location may affect your (or your host organization/employer’s) ability to pursue this opportunity. 

If you are an international student, please make sure to visit the OIA website to familiarize yourself with your work authorization eligibility and requirements as soon as possible. If you’d like to make an appointment with your international adviser, please visit this page.

This position is not benefits eligible. 

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About Us

Migrants of the Mediterranean (MotM) is a global Humanitarian Storytelling NGO documenting the individual Journey Stories of the world’s most impoverished and vulnerable people, first in Lampedusa, Italy, and now across Europe and expanding at the US southern border. The organization’s Humanitarian Storytelling methodology is a hybrid of humanitarianism, journalism and contemporary history, creating a platform to dignify and give voice to people who are otherwise unheard in the migrant community. We show up for them, in order to bring you a document of the truth. To hold for history. To advocate for change now.

How We Work

We first create a compassionate encounter with people in the migrant community to document their Journey Stories and dignify their experiences, frequently, but not exclusively, at port of entry. Their stories are documents that reveal human rights abuses, violence and many other hardships; and frequently, moments of emergency sea rescue, of which regularized persons with documentation and financial resources are exempt. 

Next, we maintain contact with our community, meaning, wherever people go we follow. The trust and intimacy developed over the months and years (some since 2016) of these shared encounters gives us direct access to the issues those in the migrant community face in Europe (and soon the US) post-rescue and arrival, including navigating asylum procedures and other legal issues; housing, labor, education and language, mental health and issues in numerous other areas related to integration and wellbeing. 

Each story is kept in the Journey Story Archive for those in media, diplomacy and public policy, and scholarship in their effort to advocate for a more complete, humane understanding of the migration phenomenon in the Central Mediterranean, and as we scale, worldwide. Most importantly, these records establish a unique ancestral document for the participants themselves and their posterity that no one else is capturing in the same way.

Migrants of the Mediterranean is seeking summer Metcalf Clinic Fellows to support with the organization’s social media and communications strategy in the project areas below:

• Administration – scrape current social followers/following on active platforms (IG and FB) and set us up on new platform (likely Bluesky); as well as suggest other to follow or engage with
• Analytics – provide feedback on best content to offer and how to engage
• Content/design – create written messaging and designed layouts for social content; would speak to exit from current platforms, announce ourselves on the new ones; potentially other posts

The internship will last for 8 weeks and will be remote and part time (up to 20 hrs./week). Interns are expected to coordinate their schedule with Migrants of the Mediterranean and be available for calls during working hours.

Candidates should be energetic, engaged, proactive and passionate about Migrants of the Mediterranean’s mission and interested in gaining real work experience.

Everyone at MotM––from the CEO to the junior volunteers––is expected to work with their whole heart. The reward for which is the work and camaraderie you develop with the team. The vulnerable people in our migrant community are dependent on that, so no one is exempt from showing up fully.

In order to apply, please submit your resume and cover letter via Handshake.