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Sydney Parsons is a 20 year old student in sport management at Temple University in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania in the United States . She has always been athlete and she is now member of the rowing team of her college . In September she started her internship from remote with the International Department of OPES . Let ’ s discover how it is going through her words .
Hello Sydney , and thank you for taking part to this interview . You have started your internship with OPES in September , How have you found out about this opportunity ? " At my university , we are required to have an internship . I ' ve been very interested in sport nonprofits and using sport to make a difference in the world and in people ' s lives . A few of my professors and people involved in my college knew this and they were contacted by OPES looking for an intern from Temple University . They believe that would be a good fit ., so they contacted me and told me a little bit about what OPES was and I was instantly interested because it combines everything I was interested in with gender inequality , sports , helping kids--helping young athletes--become a better version of themselves . I just thought it would be a really fulfilling and really interesting thing to work on , so I accepted this internship and I became a part of OPES ".
Which tasks are you fulfilling within this internship ? " I ' m currently working to support the implementation of a project called Play to Train , a project with OPES and two partner organizations , funded by the Erasmus Plus program of the European Union . It is fighting for gender equality and sport by increasing the number of female athletes and coaches , as well as just raising awareness about the importance of gender equality as a whole . The biggest thing I ' m working on is that I am helping to create and assemble a toolkit that can bring organizations through a procedure to help them increase gender equality in their organization and maybe increase the number of female coaches they have , increase the comfortableness of the athletes that they have , and make their organization a more welcoming place for females . This toolkit can hopefully be sent out to organizations all over the world ".
Considering the main objective of the project , the following question is automatic : Have you ever considered coaching as a career , why and why not ? " I honestly haven ' t really considered coaching as a career and I have no idea why . I guess I just never saw it as an option because I love sports and I am going to school going to university to be involved in sports for the rest of my life . And so I don ' t understand why coaching never crossed my mind . I didn ' t have any female coaching role models . So I never saw myself represented in anyone that I knew . So I didn ' t ever consider it to be a possibility ".
What are you learning with this internship ? " I have never really had much experience working with anything related to European organizations , so I ' m realizing that there ' s a lot of differences in how European sport bodies operate and the differences between European organizations and organizations in the United States . I ' ve also realized through my research in this project how gender inequality in sport is such a worldwide problem . It ' s not unique to the United States at all . This is happening everywhere--in Europe , in other countries , and all over the globe ".
Why is this project important to me ? " Being involved in sports for three quarters of my life , I ' ve faced a lot of obstacles . I want to be able to have an impact on sports that will allow young girls like what I used to be to have a future that isn ' t as full of obstacles , and to be able to dream as big as they possibly can , and to see themselves represented in their coaches , in the organization , and in professional sports . I think it ' s really important for girls to have role models in all aspects of their life and in sports right now , it is very hard sometimes for a young girl to find a role model in it because it ' s so dominated by males . I ' m hoping that with this project , I can hopefully impact young girls in the future ".
Thank you Sydney ! And thank you for being on board !