My law school, the University of Maryland School of Law, has several programs that let you study/work abroad for a summer or a semester. You can take summer school classes in Aberdeen, Scotland; be an exchange student at universities in Santiago, Chile, Hamburg, Germany, Beijing, China, Cape Town, South Africa; work for the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San Jose, Costa Rica; work for the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland; work in South Africa for the fall or spring semester; or spend a summer working with one of the various law reform commissions around the world. Since I do not know any Chinese or German, and am not fluent in Spanish, some of these were immediately off the table. I decided last semester that I wanted to go to South Africa. In order to have this ability I had to choose between taking South Africa: Race and the Law or Comparative Public Policy and Law Reform. Since I wasn't sure that I wanted to spend next fall abroad, I chose the latter.
Early in the semester I had to choose which commissions I wanted to apply to. My top three were:
1. SALRC
2. Australian Law Reform Commission
3. Scottish Law Commission
Each one of these would have provided an amazing experience, but South Africa was the one I had my heart set on. It also helps that I have been researching South Africa throughout the semester for a paper in that course. (In the paper I am arguing that the United States needs a constitutional amendment that guarantees welfare rights. While this seems like a radical concept to many Americans, that is not the case in South Africa. South Africa's Constitution was adopted in 1996 and is one of the progressive in the world. It guarantees, among many other things, welfare rights, such as the right to housing and education).
I sent my preferences to one of my professors who was trying to get those of us interested in working for a commission a summer position.
On April 6, I got my first inkling of SALRC's interest when my professor asked me to send an updated resume and list of projects SALRC was working on that I would be interested in. The SALRC is working on so many interesting projects right now that it was hard to select just a few, but several struck me as very interesting: Hindu Marriages; Review of administration orders; Sexual Offences: Adult prostitution; or Assisted decision-making: Adults with impaired decision-making capacity.
Each of these interested me for different reasons. The assisted decision-making project interested me because of a negotiation competition I was in earlier this semester where I was trying to negotiate medical care for a woman with Alzheimer's. I chose the sexual offences project because I have always been interested in criminal law, and it would be interesting to see how South Africa dealt with that problem. And the Hindu Marriages project interested me because of something I read for class. One day, when we were discussing South Africa, we read a proposal by the SALRC on unifying South African law, international law, and the customary Islamic law on marriages. Assuming that the Hindu Marriages project would involve something similar, I thought that it would be a great way to be exposed to multiple areas of law and public policy.
A week later, my professor informed me that the SALRC wanted to offer me a summer position. I was ecstatic. I don't thing words can really describe how excited I was to hear the news. And this past Friday, I found out that I will be working on the Hindu Marriages project. So, not only was I lucky enough to get my first choice of summer jobs, but I also get to work on one of the projects that I find most interesting.
On Friday, my "Rough Guide to South Africa" arrived, which I was able to start reading yesterday. I had to finish a paper for Election Law that was due on Saturday, so it took quite a bit of self-control to not ditch the paper for the guidebook. I've already started reading it, trying to get acquainted with an overview of South Africa's history as well as what sorts of things I need to get done before I leave.
One of the big things that I have started working on is funding my trip. I applied for a David S. Brown Fellowship (http://www.law.umaryland.edu/programs/international/fellows.html) that my school gives out to help provide financial support for international public service and externship programs. The funds for the fellowship are for off-setting airfare and to partially subsidize housing expenses. I had to put together a estimated budget, which proved to be difficult in itself, since prices are hard to gauge with the World Cup going on.
I've read about other people doing this, and I've always though that it was a clever fundraising tactic: I'm asking for any of my friends and family members who would like and are able to do so, to sponsor a portion of my trip. Some of the various things I have thought of people sponsoring and my guesstimated prices are:
World Cup Match: $50
Rugby Game: $50
Safari at Kruger National Park: $150
Train Trip to Cape Town: $75
Cage Diving with Great White Sharks: $200
Sponsor A Day: $ 20
1-Day Car Rental: $40
Those are just the things that I want to do so far. I hope to be able to stay for a week or two after my work for the SALRC ends so that I can see the country.
What do sponsors get besides my undying gratitude and knowing that they helped me have an amazing time? For any donation of $40 or more, I will send you a post card from a place I visit. $50 or more will get you either a postcard or handwritten note and, if sponsoring a trip to a sporting event, a souvenir from the game. (I'm not sure what kind of souvenirs there will be, but at a minimum I think that I can can send a program). If donating $150 or more or by sponsoring a trip to Kruger National Park, I will send you a framed 8x10 picture from my trip as well as a CD/DVD of the photos that I take. For those of you that have seen some of my photography, you know that this can be quite the nice item. And for $200 or more or sponsoring my cage diving adventure, well I haven't quite figured that one out yet. I don't know that I can take pictures of the sharks. BUT I have plenty of time to come up with something.
I intend on updating this blog as much as possible both before I leave and while I am abroad, so check back often to see what I am up to.
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