<p>I have recently been offered a summer internship with a humanitarian aid organization in Latin America. I'm currently studying International Relations and want to go on to do my master's in the same field. I hope to later on work for an NGO, preferably in the field of humanitarian aid, so generally speaking, this is a great match.</p>
<p>Two problems though:
First of all, the organization is very small, so it won't be recognized by any future employers. They will definitely have to look it up, which leads me to problem #2:</p>
<p>The organization I might intern with has strong ties to fundamental religious groups and openly incorporates religious elements in their mission statement online. While I do consider myself somewhat religious, I am certainly far, far more liberal in my political beliefs than them, but I think it would still be a worthwhile experience. </p>
<p>What I'm not sure about is how somebody reading my resume would take this. Religious elements in humanitarian aid are certainly not uncontroversial, leave alone when they're as fundamental as they are in my case. If I were to apply to, say, the Foreign Service or the UN, do you think they would consider this internship to be a sign of me being narrow-minded or possibly even illiberal? </p>
<p>I know this is a very specific question, but any input would be greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>If that was considered controversial then Campus Crusade would really screw you up lol. I doubt it will be a problem, Christianity has always done the most humanitarian aid.</p>
<p>It just makes me really nervous that when you look them up online, literally the second article comes from a regional newspaper and lists a number of people from the government who strongly oppose the idea of having this group provide humanitarian aid. I mean, the issues we are talking about here are, to some extent, fairly normal - i.e., insisting on a matching religious affiliation in new employees etc.
They just seem to have a lot of bad press.</p>
<p>I’d rather not say, they really are a very small organization and I’m definitely the only intern there… don’t need this discussion to be showing up in their search results as well :S</p>
<p>My thinking has been this, try to get as much experience as possible! The more experience you have the better, even if this internship is not at some well known organization it’s still experience and something to list on your CV. If you can bag a few more internships before graduating no-one is going to really second glance this place. If they do you could simply argue you wanted to gain some diversity.</p>
<p>Religious organizations doing charitable things are pretty common.</p>
<p>Where things tend to get more controversial are likely situations where the charity has “strings attached”, such as pressure to convert, or where the organization becomes politically involved in ways that are based on its religious values more than its charitable activity.</p>