Internships & Fellowships

2019 OCA-GH Internship Program

The OCA Internship Program is one of OCA's signature student leadership development programs. Celebrating its 40th year in 2019, the OCA Internship Program seeks to cultivate future leadership for the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community by providing opportunities to work in the public  sector and learn about issues affecting AAPIs.

2019 OCA-GH Community Advocates Fellowship

The OCA-Greater Houston ("OCA-GH") Community Advocates Fellowship Program is normally a 12-month community advocate development program designed to build a grassroots network for OCA-GH and Civic Engagement Partner organizations to engage in policy and advocacy activities. This year, we are expanding the timeline from a 12-month Fellowship to a 16-month Fellowship due to the importance of ensuring the AAPI community is counted and visible for the 2020 Census and Presidential Elections. Additionally, the Fellowship will have 2 rounds with the 1st cohort from March 2019 to June 2020, and the 2nd cohort from June 2019 to November 2020. Thus, the Capstone Project for this Fellowship is to build and further OCA’s TX 2020 Census and Presidential Elections campaigns, #BeCounted and #SeatAtTheTable.

Roles and Responsibilities during the 2019 OCA Community Advocates Fellowship Program:

• The duration of the OCA-GH program is for 16 months from March 2019 to June 2020, or June 2019 to November 2020. In the event that you can no longer fulfill your responsibilities, please notify OCA-GH staff as soon as possible. Your active participation will ensure that you get the most out of the OCA-GH program.
  
• Commit to work in coalition with other OCA-GH Fellows & HAAPI Team Staff on the 2020 Census and Voter Mobilization Campaigns. This Fellowship is the opportunity to learn community organizing and build a 2020 Census and Presidential Elections Campaign Base of Community Ambassadors/Volunteers.
  
• To ensure all fellows engage throughout the duration of the fellowship we ask that you attend:
• • Monthly cohort skills-based webinars. If you must miss a webinar, please contact OCA-GH staff immediately and follow up on any assignments.
  • Monthly #BeCounted #SeatAtTheTable campaign working group calls (every fourth Wednesday of the month).
  • In addition to regular attendance of monthly calls, you may spend up to 20 hours per month working on projects related to the # BeCounted #SeatAtTheTable campaign.
• As the OCA-GH fellowship is a rigorous program and a commitment undertaken by a cohort, we ask that fellows attend all working group sessions and skills webinars. In the event of an absence, please notify OCA staff at least 24 hours before the planned session. If you miss more than 3 meetings, your status in the program will be under review.
  
• If selected, you will need to attend all in-person meetings as well. Those meetings include: cohort convening in March 11-15, 2019 AJC Conference, June 27-30, 2019 OCA National Convention, November/December 2019 meeting in Houston, and the June 2020 AJC/OCA National Convention (tentative).
• The stipend for this Fellowship is the (1) travel, lodging, registrations for the conference/conventions, (2) registration costs of each advocacy related training webinar, and (3) $500 Census 2020 Campaign seed money (additional amounts in Fall 2019, subject to grant application approvals).

The ideal candidates have:

• Interest and commitment to Asian Pacific American advocacy issues.
• Willingness to work nights/weekends and to travel periodically as required.
• Willingness to train, manage, motivate interns and volunteers with diverse backgrounds and abilities.
• Experience public speaking and presentation skills.

Please send a resume and a statement of why you want to work on getting AAPIs to be counted in the Census and register to go out and vote to oca@ocahouston.org.