In April 2022, two years after CSP launched its collaboration with USAID’s University Scholarship Program (USP) to provide students from the American University of Beirut (AUB) and the Lebanese American University (LAU) with internship opportunities, CSP expanded its internship program to include hundreds more undergraduates and fresh graduates from nine additional Lebanese universities included under USAID’s Higher Education Capacity Development Program (HECD). Internships through CSP allow undergraduates and graduates to enrich their professional skills, enhance their employability and receive a temporary salary which is vital during the ongoing economic crisis. By February 2023, 38 of the 129 interns who were placed in internships across nine USAID implementing partners in Lebanon had secured full-time jobs. On March 10, 2023, CSP conducted its second interns’ feedback session, attended by 55 interns and their supervisors representing the 11 partner universities and nine USAID projects. The purpose of the feedback session was to enable interns to provide valuable comments and recommendations for CSP to continuously develop the program. This feedback session, focused specifically on the intern-supervisor relationship; it included a panel discussion between a supervisor and two interns and discussed the importance of supervisors providing clear guidance and the benefits of adapting work assignments per each intern’s area of interest.

“The supervisors and organizations involved in the USAID/CSP internship program really care about us and about our aspirations and feedback. This feedback session was extremely fruitful to discuss our feedback in detail.” stated Lea Khalife, an undergraduate student in advertising and communication at Haigazian University. Lea is currently supporting the CSP communications team.