My Internship Experience at Become More

Dahlia Kraus, 11/15/2024

My name is Dahlia and I’m a senior at the University of Utah studying Health, Society, and Policy with minors in Nutrition and Business. Through the Internship Step Up Fund, I had the opportunity to intern with Become More Charity. Become More is a nonprofit organization based in Utah that focuses on poverty alleviation in rural areas of Cambodia. Their mission is to increase both prosperity and fulfillment for individuals and communities.

Last summer from May-July 2024, I volunteered for Become More in Cambodia. I lived with the Cambodian staff and became involved with their range of programs, with a focus on health. My primary volunteer task was designing a pilot survey to research health and wellness circumstances of families in rural Cambodia, as well as measure the impact of Become More initiatives. In addition, I taught several English classes and designed a series of nutrition lessons for children. Overall, I gained many perspectives and skills that added to my holistic understanding of public health approaches. I also had the incredible opportunity to travel while I was there and become immersed in the culture.

When I returned to Utah, I wanted to continue working with Become More and was fortunate enough to find Step Up funding. Through the funding, I was able to intern for Become More this semester (September-November 2024), with a focus on data analytics. The primary internship responsibility was data management for Become More programs through Qualtrics survey development and data analysis. For example, Become More teaches English at elementary schools in four rural villages in Cambodia. Originally, they had teachers mark attendance on paper and then staff transferred the data into a Google Sheet. This was time consuming, so I created an automated attendance tracking system that was more organized and efficient. Now each teacher has a Qualtrics survey in which they select whether a student was absent or present, and the data automatically populates in a Google Sheet. This allows Become More to easily track attendance rates and follow up with students who stop attending school.

Through my internship, I gained first-hand experience that I will take forward with me. It was insightful to see the importance of collecting data to track progress and impact. Creating organized systems within organizations is also key for long-term sustainability and scalability. Additionally, I learned how to work remotely while still communicating with the team.

With a career path in public health, I am still exploring global health compared to community health options. In the future, I would love to do more work related to nonprofits and helping people climb Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs towards self-actualization. It has been increasingly inspiring to work with Become More and understand their model for prosperity.