AAFAF wraps up 2nd edition of José M. Berrocal summer internship program
Talks with the governor to visits to rural communities were some of the experiences that defined the second edition of the José M. Berrocal Summer Internship, which wrapped up Aug. 6, Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority (AAFAF, in Spanish) Executive Director Omar Marrero confirmed.
The summer internship brought together 14 university students from a variety of academic fields and allowed them to work for nine weeks in the areas of legal counseling government affairs, financial advisory, fiscal agency, infrastructure projects, recovery project, and communications. The students participating in the internship came from different universities in Puerto Rico and the continental United States.
“This being the second edition of the internship, and the first held entirely in person, we had the opportunity to expose our interns to a wide range of experiences in service; from conferences with public servants and visits to agencies, to experiences of social impact in nonprofit organizations,” Marrero said.
“Certainly, the growth and professional development of these 14 students during the past nine weeks is proof of the success of the program,” said Marrero.
As a fundamental part of the program, the interns participated in a series of talks given by officials from the three branches of government, in which they were exposed to key issues in the government of Puerto Rico, such as debt restructuring, bankruptcy processes under PROMESA, and the modernization of the government through information technology and the transformation of human resources.
The learning experiences went beyond their workplace at AAFAF, as the students also had the opportunity to visit different government agencies, such as the Puerto Rico Supreme Court. This set of interdisciplinary experiences allowed the group of interns to acquire a rigorous degree of knowledge on issues of public administration and government management.
As part of their internship, the college students developed their own projects and innovation proposals for their respective areas of work in the AAFAF. In their final week of work, they each had the opportunity to present their final project to the mentors that accompanied them throughout their nine weeks at the agency.
A third edition of the internship will be held next summer.
