Internships in Sustainability
Empower yourself through hands-on work
with a contemplative approach
in a healthy and supportive environment.
Highlights
Focus on training, empowerment
Meaningful real-world work
Integrated personal and professional development
Residential experience
Supportive community
Healthy meals and lifestyle
Contemplative practices: meditation, yoga, reflection
INTERNSHIPS FOR EARTHLINGS
Internships at Earthville Institute are faculty-supervised training programs designed to provide both practical experience and deeper theoretical knowledge in the context of a real-world work environment, while also evolving as a human being.
Earthville’s Internships are open to people of all backgrounds, including experienced professionals and students alike. Interns have the opportunity to attend workshops, participate in long-term courses, join the hands-on work on campus, and (in the case of long-term interns) gain management-level experience and develop leadership skills.
What distinguishes Earthville’s internships from our other programs?
There are two important differences between our internships and our other types of programs (e.g. workshops, courses, and volunteering):
Inner-circle experience: We include our interns in every aspect of the leadership team’s processes for creating and managing the institute and its programs so interns can gain insight into every level, from the smallest details to the big decisions and the behind-the-scenes magic that makes it all happen.
Significant commitments: Interns are part of our core team, so there is a serious two-way commitment. From our side, we commit to providing an empowering on-the-job training experience for our interns. And likewise, our interns make a serious commitment to conduct themselves with personal integrity and professional ethics, and to be dependable members of the team and exemplary members of the community.
In short, an internship is a “real job” where the “paycheck” is the education, experience, and empowerment the intern gains.
Why pursue an internship with Earthville?
In addition to the general benefits of Earthville Institute’s ethos, community, and natural setting, there are two advantages specific to our internship programs:
Empowering the whole person: Our holistic and contemplative approach combines professional development with personal evolution to empower interns to forge pathways toward balanced, happy and healthy lives of meaningful and fruitful work. Our internships provide education and training not only in the skills and concepts of the field, but also in the interpersonal and intrapersonal dimensions of work, emphasizing mindfulness, reflection, communication, collaboration, and other ‘soft skills’ that are essential to sustainable success.
Quality of engagement: At Earthville Institute, our interns are truly full members of our team and our family. We trust our interns to rise to the challenges we offer, so we give them real responsibility to grow into, with our full support and guidance.
Learn it by living it
SUMMER INTERNSHIPS AT EARTHVILLE INSTITUTE
Earthville Institute currently offers a seasonal internship program at our eco-campus in Colorado, which we call “Summer of Sustainability.” The SoS is a three-month immersive residential service-learning program providing an engaging in-depth exploration of sustainable and compassionate living integrating hands-on experience with contemplative practice in a healthy and supportive environment in the lap of nature.
Focal points of the program:
Earth-friendly natural building
Organic foodgrowing and permaculture principles
Holistic personal and professional development
Healthy living: meditation, yoga, and more
This interdisciplinary program explores the art of what we call “compassionate living,” which integrates both “outer sustainability” and “inner sustainability,” seeking ways of living in harmony with nature as an expression of our true inner nature.
For details on the 2024 SoS program, see this page.
INTERNSHIPS AT OUR HIMALAYAN CAMPUS
Looking for a service-learning adventure? For those who are able and interested to pursue a long-term internship in the Indian Himalayas, we encourage you to check out the internship programs at Dharmalaya Institute for Compassionate Living, our sister school in the Indian Himalayas.
Dharmalaya Institute currently offers three internship programs:
Vernacular Eco-Architecture (IVEA)
Permaculture & Organic Gardening (POG)
Sustainable Project Development (ISPD)
While these three internships have some overlap in terms of content, especially on the conceptual and philosophical levels, there are significant practical differences. The ISPD is designed for anyone interested in manifesting sustainable projects in any field, whereas the IVEA is intended primarily for architects (and for others working in related fields, e.g. engineers and interior designers as well, if they have serious interest in practicing nature-sensitive architectural design and earthen building); while the IPOG internship explores the world of permaculture as both philosophy and practice, with a practical focus on the food-growing and landscaping aspects of permaculture.
Vernacular Eco-Architecture
(IVEA)
The Internship in Vernacular Eco-Architecture (IVEA) at Dharmalaya Institute is a residential internship program designed to provide architects (and students of architecture) with both practical experience and deeper theoretical knowledge in the arts and practices of sustainable building, with hands-on training primarily in the Kangra style of vernacular earthen architecture as developed by Didi Contractor and continually refined by Dharmalaya Institute.
Permaculture & Organic Gardening
(IPOG)
The Internship in Permaculture & Organic Gardening (IPOG) at Dharmalaya Institute is a residential service-learning and on-the-job-training program for people interested in how to achieve harmonious relationships between the built environment (shelter), the cultivated environment (gardens/farms/orchards), and the natural environment. The internship explores both the theory and practice of permaculture, including the social and personal aspects as well as the ecological.
Sustainable Project Development
(ISPD)
The Internship in Sustainable Project Development (ISPD) is a residential service-learning program for people with passionate interest in practicing and promoting optimum sustainability solutions in our lives and in our work, e.g. starting a new nonprofit organization, “green business,” or other sustainability-oriented project; bringing more sustainability into the workplace; sustainable corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, or whatever you’re dreaming of doing to care for the planet.
WE CAN HELP YOU FUNDRAISE TO COVER THE FEES FOR YOUR OWN PARTICIPATION
Earthville Institute is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization and, as such, members of the public can make tax-deductible contributions toward our scholarship fund. If you have financial hardship that prevents you from being able to afford the tuition fees for a program that you’d like to attend, we can empower you with tools and a webpage where you can run your won crowdfunding campaign to raise funds to support your own scholarship. Contact us for details.
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