Wildlife Conservation Society

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) will create a consolidated internship program to connect New York City youth with high-quality work experiences, professional development, and career opportunities in the five New York City wildlife parks operated by WCS — the Bronx, Central Park, Prospect Park, and Queens Zoos, and the New York Aquarium. Project activities will include inventorying the hundreds of existing WCS internships, standardizing internship practices and compensation, creating an internship application website, building strategic partnerships to diversify recruitment, establishing an application screening process that aligns with diversity, equity, and inclusion best practices, training all staff who supervise interns, and ensuring that interns can connect to existing WCS skill building and career development resources. The project will result in more equitable access to internship experiences, providing them with the skills and social capital to advance at WCS or other cultural institutions.