As a high school student I did not know what to expect of my internship. My friends had planned on interning at banks and hospitals. This had made me speculate on whether I made a right decision or not. Finally, the day for my internship arrived. On entering through the gates with some alien faces staring blankly at me from the balcony, I could feel the anxiety increasing. I tried to disguise my nervousness through short and firm introduction. I was asked to present my knowledge on the disease. As the course already integrated in my biology syllabus I confidently presented what I had studied about the topic. Then my supervisor proposed either to just work with the statistics or to do a field research. Although not much of an extrovert, choosing the latter I wanted to approach new opportunities of reaching out to people.
The next few days, I visited hospitals and doctors with my supervisor, studied about the procedures involved in identification of victims, became involved with the victims at a personal level and kept track of their drug administration and health condition. With theirs as well as mine comfort level increasing I went to their counseling sessions with their families. Their will to live and fight against the disease despite their deteriorating health; their hope of reuniting with their family and rehabilitating back encouraged and inspired me to be more open minded and work for their rights. And during my course of work, I was happy to see one of the victims being rehabilitated back to his family.
Although the internship lasted only for a month,