Internships in Sustainability and the Environment: "Communications in Sustainability," by Otter Giltz

I served my internship with Radio Monteverde, a communications project in Monteverde, Costa Rica. The purpose of the project is to facilitate the creation and dispersal of sustainability related information to a bilingual audience. My supervisor was Mari Wadsworth, the director of Radio Monteverde. She offered invaluable guidance, training and feedback throughout the process.

My internship was focused on the creation of three podcasts on topics of sustainability: environmental, economic and social. For the podcasts we interviewed 11 stakeholders in the Monteverde zone. We worked to include representatives of social, environmental and economic sectors of the zone. The first podcast centered on the paving of Route 606, the mountain road up to Monteverde, and its impacts on the zone. The second podcast was significantly longer and encouraged sustainable development using examples from the zone. The third and final podcast was focused on the rural community of Guacimal and its community efforts to protect its waterways.

Being from a small, tight knit farming community, I have always been interested in communities. Interested in understanding their structure, composition and motivations. I learned early the power of communities and the importance of communication in their effectiveness. This has led to a professional interest reflected in my education, in the hopes that I may facilitate such community dialogue toward the a sustainability oriented end.

I have gained several new skills during the course of this internship as well as further developing some I previously held. The new skills I gained were primarily technical. I learned how to operate a portable audio recorder and basic skills in the audio editing program ‘Audacity’. Additionally, I developed skills in communication. I wrote and conducted interviews on established topics in conjunction with my fellow intern. I developed my interpersonal communication and non-violent conflict resolution skills in navigating conflicts during the course of our internship.

Conducting an interview at Monteverde FM

Due to my limited Spanish language skills I did not facilitate the majority of our interviews, although I was present and involved. My biggest contribution was in time spent reviewing interviews, selecting relevant portions and assembling them into a podcast built around our narration. Personally, I consider my biggest accomplishment in this internship to be the successful navigation of differing interests and styles, especially during the construction of the various scripts.

An interview at the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve

The limited length of this internship did not limit the mutually productive relationship I formed with the benefitting parties. While the work was done directly for broadcast by Monteverde FM I know it will be heard not only by local but global citizens. In turn, this internship impacted me by encouraging me to develop a variety of technical and professional communication skills that will benefit me for years to come.