Here is a reflection of Takanari Wakayama’s internship experience with CARP. You may remember him from ‘Meet CARP’s New Intern’ article back in April.
From April 25 to June 13, I had the amazing opportunity to intern at CARP America in New York City. It has been a very enriching and empowering experience. I’ve always wanted to know what it was like to work with a team that has the same agenda – to make the world a better place. It was really inspiring and I enjoyed it a lot.
The CARP team decided to hold one of our meetings outside in Bryant Park.
They call New York City the concrete jungle.
In working for CARP, I felt that just being me (in the sense of staying the same) was not enough. I felt encouraged and challenged to keep working on myself. I realized that there is no limit as to what you can achieve and there is no obstacle you cannot overcome if you know how much potential and value you posses. And this is what CARP is all about- empowering people to stand up for righteousness, truth, and goodness.
I felt humbled to work for such a great cause and to stand on the foundation built by so many people’s investment in the past. I wanted to be a part of it, contribute, and learn more.
My Highlights
Apart from meeting awesome people, I’ve been to experience:
- Coaching for the first time in my life. I experienced it and was also trained in it, culminating in me offering coaching to students from Generation Peace Academy! They expressed how much they enjoyed it and how helpful it was for them. I was blown away.
- Learning administrative skills by working on projects first-hand such as audio and video editing, back-end website maintenance, editing documents, and managing a social media page (just to name a few).
- A New York City bagel (apparently it’s different than other bagels. It’s big and it was delicious).
- Visiting the beautiful campus of the Unification Theological Seminary in Barrytown, NY AND tasting the much talked about Holy Cow ice cream.
Here I try Holy Cow ice cream after a successful work day at CARP.
Trying my NYC bagel to see what the fuss is all about.
While in NYC I also got to experience hallal street food.
Takeaways
Sadly my time here is up. But luckily, the vision of CARP has spread around the world so there’s always more to be explored. One takeaway I want to bring home with me back to Germany is that even though we all have our personal struggles and differences, by working together we can even out each other’s weaknesses to achieve so much more.
I especially wanted to experience American culture and to stand in the shoes of America as elder son nation. I could see why True Father invested into this country to bring about global change.
For me, this internship meant that I had to step out of my comfort zone, my own country, even my own region, and to broaden my horizon. I feel grateful for this experience, all that I could learn, the people who took care of me, and the friends I made along the way. I’ve definitely grown a lot throughout this process. Even though it meant commuting a total of four hours everyday into New York City, it was totally worth it.
Thank you CARP!
Thank you America!
– Takanari Wakayama