A Virtual Internship - With Enthusiasm!

When Dasha Davidouskaya came to the United States for school, she did not know she’d be facing a global pandemic and the most contentious US election cycle in memory. She did not know that the internship she would later take on with SIL LEAD in Washington, D.C. would have to be done virtually. Dasha was as blindsided as the rest of us, but has rolled with these (seemingly unending) punches with grace and enthusiasm.

Dasha was born in Minsk, the capital and largest city located in the center of Belarus, and lived there until the age of seventeen. Then she received a scholarship to study in the Netherlands, where she completed an international Baccalaureate degree.

From there she received another scholarship to study at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, where she is currently a Junior, majoring in Communication Studies and Anthropology. It was through Luther that she came to Washington, D.C. and found her way (as a part of their program) to her internship with us.

Dasha really enjoyed her interview with Executive Director Paul Frank and Business Development Consultant Kristy Smith, realizing that the mission of SIL LEAD—focused as it was on minority languages—fit perfectly with her interests in Communication, Anthropology, and Development. For our part, we immediately saw her enthusiasm and ability, and were grateful for the added bonus of her linguistic abilities.

Dasha actually grew up speaking primarily Russian, which was the language of instruction in her school, and only learned Belarusian as a part of the curriculum beginning in grade one. It may surprise some readers to know that while both Russian and Belarusian are official languages in her country, Russian was the more common language where she lived. But Russian is an official language of not only Russia, and Belarus; but also Kazakhstan and Kyrgyszstan, and is in wide use throughout Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Baltic States; so speaking it provides wider opportunities for communication.

Dasha also studied English in school, but her current facility with the language (which, despite her modesty about it, is quite impressive) has been dramatically helped by her past four years living in an English speaking environment—first in the Netherlands, and now here in the United States.

So Paul quickly put her to work translating books with COVID-19 information in the Bloom library from English into Russian, with the hope that this would make it easier for people in many countries to translate them from Russian into their own, ethnic languages.

Thus far, Dasha has translated four of these Bloom books into Russian. They can be viewed here, here, here, and here.

Dasha also plans to translate some of those books into her native Belarusian language, and has been tasked with translating the Bloom interface into Russian. In addition, she has been working on some ideas for guest posts on this blog, as well as helping to organize spreadsheets of information on COVID-19 resources available in different languages.

Although Dasha was initially skeptical about the idea of a virtual internship, she’s grown to enjoy the process and has found communication with the SIL LEAD team to be open and warm.

For our part, we’ve been grateful for Dasha’s flexibility as she’s adapted to a number of different tasks, in an unexpected and abnormal work situation. Although like most young people, Dasha is still in the process of exploring her interests and options and is unsure where she will ultimately end up—whether in business, or development, or civil service—we’re grateful for this time she has with us, and confident that wherever she lands, she’ll make a real difference.