Read about Joo Youn’s experience:
PREDA (People’s Recovery, Empowerment Development Assistance) Foundation is the Philippine human rights social development organization working over 40 years to help the poorest and most vulnerable people in particular exploited women and children and to overcome injustice and poverty in society. Father Shay Cullen, a missionary priest from Ireland, established the PREDA Foundation as well as the PREDA Fair Trade and has worked as the president of the PREDA since 1969. The mission of the organization is based on Gospel to work for just laws and their implementation empowering the poor and protecting their rights, to protect the weak and the defenseless, especially children and women exploited in prostitution, and to assist the sexually abused and develop fair trade programs helping alleviate poverty and exploitation. In order to achieve those goals, several projects has been in progress, for example: (1) Rescue, treatment and recovery for sexually and physical abused children; (2) Investigation and prosecution of child abusers; (3) Raising public awareness through media; (4) Fair Trade Project which provides assistance to small farmers and the victims of human trafficking; (5) Leadership training; and (6) Lobbying project to the local government.
Among those projects, I as a legal intern worked for the rescue of the sexually abused children and the investigation and prosecution of child abusers. The followings are the primary activities which I did during the internship.
My activities mostly consisted of legal writing such as motions and the letters to the police office or to the judge. I made out the drafts of such legal documents on the basis of case files. In addition, I did some legal researches and other paper works for the criminal proceedings against child abusers.
Since I joined several investigations, my internship was not limited to the office works. Social investigation is one of field works for various purposes, for example: (1) to gather evidence or to meet the victims of sexual abuse or trafficking before/during the legal proceeding against the perpetrator; (2) to rescue the victims from the crime and (3) to assess the current situation of after-care service beneficiaries.
Every January each department of the PREDA has to make their own presentations to show their achievement and plan for the present year to every worker and board member. With my supervisor, I collected and reorganized the relevant data for the annual report of legal office. Then, based on the data, I made a presentation file using Microsoft PowerPoint and other software.