This summer a record nine students are taking part in Campaign Life Coalition’s summer internship programme. The programme is an opportunity for students from various educational disciplines to contribute to the pro-life movement, while gaining valuable work experience during the summer months.

The students are not the only ones who benefit from this opportunity. While many companies and businesses begin to slow down during the summer, CLC busily continues its work to restore protection for the preborn and to promote respect for all stages of life in Canada and across the world. The work of the summer interns contributes to these goals. In addition, through employing bright, caring, and hardworking students, CLC is instrumental in ensuring pro-life leaders for the future. CLC’s New Brunswick president Anna Halpine, for example, is a recent graduate of the programme.

This summer, CLC has a wonderful variety of students from different schools, disciplines, and faiths. Their fields of study vary from science to international relations. In order to find out exactly how the students benefit from their internship at CLC, The Interim posed the following question to each of them: “What have you learned from your work experience at CLC, and how do you plan to carry what you have learned into your future career?”

The responses were inspiring, offering hope for a bright future for Canada and the Canadian pro-life movement.

Tanya Granic, who will enter the faculty of science at the University of Western Ontario in the fall, has become “aware of the issues that concern human life. I hope to ensure that scientific technologies help society become aware of how sacred life really is.”

Esther Oh studies law at Queen’s University. As an evangelical Christian, she finds it encouraging to work with pro-lifers. “My increased awareness of issues and the friendships with other Christians (I’ve made) are blessings from God which will aid me in my future legal career,” she says.

Jacquie Nivet, who’ll begin journalism studies at the University of King’s College in Halifax in the fall, says her summer job gives her fulfilment and strength in times of discouragement, because she knows she is working for the truth.

James Evans is also a student at King’s College in Halifax. His majors are journalism and history. “Working as a writer allows me to integrate my studies at King’s with the all-important work we do at CLC towards restoring human rights for the unborn,” he says.

‘Such a lift’

Jason Gould is soon to be a seminarian with the Companions of the Cross, a flourishing Roman Catholic religious community based in Ottawa. He feels that CLC has armed him with the knowledge he needs to be a witness to the rights of the preborn and aged.

Mary Ellen Tardif is an OAC student at the Hawthorn School for Girls in Toronto. She’s gained an increased sensitivity to the plight of the preborn, the elderly, and the handicapped. “I’m sure that I’ll take this awareness with me into university and later into my professional life,” she says.

Charmaine Graves is presently studying international relations at the University of Toronto. At the time this article was written, she was out of the country helping with CLC’s international lobby effort in Rome.

The two remaining interns, Kathleen Magee and Emma McCash, were unavailable when this article was written.

CLC national president Jim Hughes says the student summer internship program has a positive impact on everybody involved. “These kids give everyone here such a lift,” he explains. “The office seems dull in September after they go. But they’re our future; and even if some of them don’t end up actually doing pro-life work full-time, they’ll all end up being important players in the restoration of justice and decency in this country in whatever fields they choose.

“We’re investing in them, because they’re our hope for the future,” says Hughes.