Start/End Dates: May 26, 2025 – October 10, 2025 (20 weeks)
Compensation: $688 per week
Medical Insurance: Not provided
Application Due: February 7, 2025

The Latino Heritage Internship Program seeks to engage ethnically and racially diverse young professionals in natural resource careers.

Eligibility Requirement: 

• You must be a U.S. citizen or legal resident.
• Driver's license and personal vehicle are required.

Position Description: 

In 1990, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site was given the expanded responsibility to develop interpretive themes beyond that of North America’s first English colony. As part of this new interpretation, the park has since focused on all peoples who have contributed to the history of Roanoke Island, including Native American Algonquians, English colonists and explorers, radio pioneers, Civil War civilians and soldiers, and African Americans, whose descendants still live in the vicinity. To this end, the park applied for and received acceptance into the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program in 2002, hoping to expand the story of the post-Civil War African American Freedmen’s Colony. The park’s museum features a limited display dedicated to this pivotal time in America’s history, so the park used Network to Freedom grant funds to expand that storyline by installing interpretive waysides along the Freedom Interpretive Trail.

The Latino Heritage Internship Program (LHIP) has been instrumental in this project. LHIP interns have given public programs, worked with park partners and community members, and created waysides for the park and the Freedom Trail. Our next step, as the stewards of the story of the Freedmen’s Colony, is to ensure the public has ready access to this information through new media.

The Digital Media intern’s primary duty will be leveraging the research and information discovered about the Freedmen’s Colony into new media for the park. This includes the park website, park social media, and the NPS app. Through writing, photography, and editing, the intern will engage the public in new ways at Fort Raleigh and help increase access to the Freedmen’s Colony for our diverse digital and on-site visitors. The primary deliverable the intern will create is an audio walking tour of the Fort Raleigh Freedom Trail. This audio tour will include stops at the waysides created with previous LHIP interns and will provide a new and accessible way for visitors to experience the trail.

Building on the successes of the 2024 LHIP and HBCUI Interpretive Writing interns, the intern will also help elevate the park website by expanding its reach and scope through new webpages. They will also assist in the creation of social media content for the park about the Freedmen’s Colony and the other park interpretive themes through photos, written content, and accessible videos with the aid of park staff.

The intern will create an interpretive public program about the Freedmen’s Colony of Roanoke Island as an introduction to public interpretation and public speaking. They will research, engage with, and learn about the Freedmen’s Colony story to create a unique way to share the story with the public through Audience-Centered Interpretation and learn techniques for public speaking and presentation.

The intern will have opportunities to shadow other park staff to learn more about the overall work of the National Park Service, as well as park partners and other community organizations involved in telling diverse stories through special events and programs. In the past, interns at Fort Raleigh have worked with both Somerset Plantation (a 19th-century plantation where over 861 people were enslaved before being freed and relocating to the Freedmen’s Colony) and Pea Island Cookhouse Museum (which tells the story of the first and only all-Black Lifesaving Station crew, several of whom were colonists at the Freedmen’s Colony).

Responsibilities:

• Desire to work with new types of media, such as websites, social media, and applications.
• Ability to think outside the box and find creative solutions.
• Ability to work well within a team and collaborate with others.

Qualifications:

• Applicants should demonstrate a genuine interest in history, natural sciences, communications, education, and/or park and recreation management.
• A strong interest and/or ability to communicate with people of all ages and backgrounds, both in formal public speaking roles and informal interpersonal communication.
• Desire to be bold and creative.
• Possess initiative and the ability to work independently.
• Ability to summarize information and write audience-centered content.
• Ability to work well within a team and collaborate with others.
• Interest and experience in writing and editing articles or webpages.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Microsoft online applications.
• Interest in learning how to conduct research on a topic using sound historical resources and/or field observations, while being provided guidance in designing original education and interpretive programs.

Interns in this program will receive 800 hours toward Public Land Corps (PLC) Hiring Authority. See below for information about PLC.

Public Land Corps Non-Competitive Hiring Authority (PLC)
The Public Land Corps Non-Competitive Hiring Authority is a special hiring authority available to qualifying interns. The intern must be between the ages of 18 and 30 years old, inclusive, or a veteran up to age 35 and complete 640 hours of work on an appropriate conservation project to be eligible for this hiring authority. Upon successful completion of the PLC project(s), the intern is eligible for two years to be hired non-competitively into a federal seasonal, term, or permanent position. The applicant must apply to a PLC-eligible position advertised on USAJobs.gov and selected off a non-competitive certificate of eligibility. For more information, see DOI Personnel Bulletins 11-02 , 12-13, and 17-03.

EEO Statement

Environment for the Americas provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.