Development Internships in Belize

This internship program is tailored to fulfill your academic requirements and personal and professional learning goals. You can select flexible durations of 3, 4, 6, or 8 weeks. You are then paired with projects that align with your academic requirements, career goals, and personal interests while also supporting local organizations in Belize. Typically, interns work 30-35 hours per week, applying classroom knowledge to real-world challenges in various fields such as education, conservation, entrepreneurship, social service, and other areas as requested. This experience is designed to enhance important employability skills, including collaboration, independence, and intercultural communication. A typical 4-week program includes living with a host family for deep cultural immersion, along with curated excursions focused on cultural, environmental, and historical topics. Enhance your career readiness and earn academic credit through this flexible, hands-on practicum.

This four-week field course explores the intersections of economics, health, medicine, and social development in the tropics—with Belize as the focus. Its objective is to provide students with knowledge and insight into the epidemiology, diagnosis, therapy, and prevention of tropical diseases. Emphasis is placed on the scientific, intercultural, and social aspects of global health, tropical medicine, public health, and ethnobiology in these subjects. Students also examine policy issues and determinants of public health and health policy in international health. They acquire an introduction to tropical infectious diseases and review the strategies used to treat these diseases in resource-limited settings. Finally, they learn to situate health in its wider social, economic, and political context and acquire a basic understanding of the intimate, bi-directional relationship between health and development processes. Instruction focuses on field-based, hands-on learning. Lectures, readings from primary literature, and discussions are also integral components of the program.