Conservation Intern, Sarah Woodfield, reflects on her A Rocha internship.

I’m from New Zealand where winter is in the middle of the year, and we have summer at Christmas time. Since I’m not much into winter sports it wasn’t a hard decision to come to A Rocha Canada in May of 2016 as a summer intern for three months.

I’ve been involved with A Rocha Aotearoa New Zealand for around seven years, and I’ve come to the other side of the world for two reasons. The first is to have a change from my current life and responsibilities, to re-focus and get a fresh perspective. The second is because I want to spend a period of time focusing on one of my key passions, conservation, in the context of an intentional community.

Life as an intern has included:

  • Training and hands-on experience in conservation science studies
  • Daily and weekly farm and house chores
  • Cooking for and cleaning up after communal meals (so far the maximum has been 30 or so people)
  • Daily communal prayer and weekly community worship time (optional but encouraged)
  • Weekly intern teaching sessions (discussions on theology and other theory topics to do with environmental stewardship)
  • A five-day working retreat on Mayne Island (helping with an environmental project, and some good teaching and reflection time)
  • Helping to set up, host and enjoy various events (talks from visiting guests and fundraising concerts)
  • Weekly community activities (games and music)

There are a number of specializations available as an intern (including Sustainable Agriculture, Hospitality and Environmental Education), and I chose Conservation Science. My degree is in biology, but I haven’t worked in that field, and so I decided to spend some time doing this as a volunteer. My goodness, there’s lots of interesting things to do. I’ll be reporting and presenting on my main projects which consist of monitoring and tracking two different amphibian species. However, I’ve also been involved in:

  • Weekly bird walks (observing and recording species)
  • Hummingbird banding (I was able to operate the trap and also hold them as they were released)
  • Water quality monitoring (as part of a contract with the local council)
  • Fence-building (to protect habitat from livestock on private land) and weed removal
  • Attending a local planning meeting
  • Helping run an A Rocha booth at a local community event
  • Interacting with other volunteers and promoting understanding of A Rocha
  • Visiting another Gulf Island (Salt Spring) to meet students and help with some ongoing projects run by a local Christian university (Trinity Western)

This experience has been at times interesting, delightful and challenging. I tend to look ahead to plan the next step, but have been largely successful in putting that on hold while I’ve been here, and to concentrate on each day as it comes. I don’t know what God has in store for me in the future to build on this experience, and I don’t need to know. It’s enough that He does.

For more information on the Internship Program at Brooksdale in Surrey, BC please visit www.arocha.ca/internships