Sample cover letter for Full Time position at FHI 360

I am submitting my application for the post of Project Officer for the Human Rights Education Project. The idea of integrating education with values of positive peace and human rights has fascinated me for a long time now. The interest grew from my firsthand experience of the human rights situation of the most active conflict zone of the country, J&K on a summer internship. As a part of my work, I was visiting schools and orphanages which made me reflect on the long-term psychological issues faced by children in the form of PTSD. I was extremely perturbed with the stereotypes the small kids had in their mind about identical constructs such as ‘Hindus’, ‘Indians’, ‘Good Muslim’. This experience was both saddening and intriguing for me and led an interest in me towards understanding the way children learn.

This led me to Gandhi Fellowship, an opportunity that gave me direct inlet to understand education as a laboratory of change through developing the leadership of public schools Headmasters. I was able to interact with the officials at the higher echelons of decision making, as well as the policy executors & the ultimate benefactors, i.e Children. This provided me a holistic understanding of the education system and simultaneously helped me to lead the grassroots change in six schools. Through my work, I have come to a realization that in order to internalize values in children, they must become the living values of the institution first. If the school does not practice empathy towards its stakeholders, then greater are the chances that children will not be empathetic in their daily conduct.

Because the current public education models don’t cater to the different psychological needs of children, my long - term vision is to develop a peace education model that is scalable to reach  a large domain of public education system. In order to testify my ideas on the field, I am currently in the process of piloting a community -based peace education project with 12-15 children of age group 12-14 years. In 19 months of work, I have taken projects that focus on the development of various aspects of a child’s development- educational, extra-curricular & personal. I have tried to democratize the key processes such as staff/SMC/parent meetings so as to establish a democratic culture in schools where accountability and equality are the core operative values. Also, I have been actively engaging myself in community mobilization and have done two large -scale community events in this semester.

I firmly believe that my education, as  well as my experience, will add value to the project. Further, by associating myself with the project, I’d be able to enhance my learning in the sector and move closer to my long -term goal of becoming a peace education expert.