UNHCR – United Nations Refugee Agency is Recruiting Protection Interns (2024)
Closes 3 March 2024
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, takes the lead in protecting people forced to flee wars and persecution around the world, providing life-saving aid including shelter, food and water to ensure their basic safety, rights and dignity. With 18,879 women and men working in 137 countries, we work tirelessly to make a difference in the lives of 89.3 million forcibly displaced people worldwide.
Our dedicated and professional staff work around the clock in roles including legal protection, community services, public affairs, health and more. Despite the challenges they can face, our staff are proud to work for UNHCR and determined to make a positive impact.
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Why a career with UNHCR?
Our dedicated staff work to protect and assist people fleeing conflict and persecution at a time when global forced displacement is at a record high. Our colleagues bring a wide range of specialized skills, including expertise in legal protection, administration, community services, public affairs, health and other disciplines.
Disability Inclusion
If you are a person with a disability and you expect you may face challenges during the recruitment process, you can indicate it in your application form.
There are options to select any health conditions you may have and outline any necessary adjustments related to disabilities during the recruitment phases. Providing this information is optional. It will be treated as strictly confidential and used only for the purpose of finding out how to better assist you during the recruitment process.
Diversity
The UNHCR workforce consists of many diverse nationalities, cultures, languages and opinions. UNHCR seeks to sustain and strengthen this diversity to ensure equal opportunities as well as an inclusive working environment for its entire workforce. Applications are encouraged from all qualified candidates without distinction on grounds of race, colour, sex, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity.
UNHCR’s Protection and Solutions Unit (PSU) serves asylum seekers, refugees, and stateless persons in the territory of the United States (U.S.), promoting protection in law and policy, as well as engaging in U.S. resettlement policy and local integration issues. The PSU’s resettlement staff also support UNHCR’s Caribbean Unit by managing refugee resettlement operations out of the Caribbean states and territories. The PSU informs government officials, attorneys, and NGOs about international standards of refugee protection and protection for stateless persons.
The Individual Case (IC) Team facilitates a central part of UNHCR’s work in the U.S. to provide information on the laws, policies, and procedures for seeking protection in the United States to asylum-seekers, NGOs, and attorneys. The team also provides counseling on individual resettlement queries from congressional offices, NGOs and resettlement agencies.
The Regional Protection Policy Team within the PSU focuses on protection policy and practice with UNHCR operations in Latin America as it relates to U.S. border policy; US maritime protection and Northern Caribbean policy and practice; and the interplay between U.S. border arrivals, U.S. domestic responses, and U.S. regional engagement with Latin American states.
The Resettlement Team within the PSU works primarily in three areas including: identifying, interviewing, and submitting for resettlement refugees out of the Northern Caribbean region; U.S. resettlement policies impacting global resettlement; and U.S. policy regarding refugees resettled in the U.S.
Duties and Responsibilities:
• Answer and respond to individual queries from asylum seekers, refugees, stateless people, and other people with and for whom UNHCR works;
• Conduct interviews in Spanish with refugees to obtain basic protection information;
• Conduct country of origin and other research to support individual asylum cases;
• Conduct policy research on domestic and regional asylum procedures, among other topics;
• Provide counseling on individual resettlement queries from congressional offices, NGOs and resettlement agencies through writing to UNHCR country offices;
• Observe and report on relevant meetings and conferences with government agencies and various NGOs working in the field;
• Open and maintain individual case files in UNHCR’s case management database;
• Conduct other projects as needed to further assist the people with and for whom UNHCR works.
Minimum Qualifications Required:
• Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, or J.D. degree, either obtained or in-process (assignments may vary depending on intern’s background).
• Strong interest in the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, displaced persons, other protected individuals. stateless individuals, international relations, human rights, or humanitarian response.
• General technological proficiency a plus.
