Internships at Dharmalaya Institute

Highlights

• Focus on training, empowerment

• Open to professionals & students

• Meaningful real-world work

• Personal & professional development

• Serious commitments

• Avg. 8 hours of work per day

• Residential programme

• Supportive community

• Healthy meals & lifestyle

• Contemplative practices: yoga, meditation, etc.

Internships at Dharmalaya Institute are faculty-supervised training programmes 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.

Internships are open to experienced professionals and students alike. Interns have the opportunity to attend workshops, participate in long-term courses, join hands-on work on campus, and (in the case of long-term interns) gain management-level experience and develop leadership skills.

What distinguishes internships from other programmes?

There are two important differences between our internships and our other types of programmes (e.g. workshops, courses, and volunteering):

1. Full-time training focus: The main objective of internships is to train participants for real-world work. Of course we bring a reflective approach to everything we do here, so there is plenty of discussion and contemplation, but most of our interns’ 9-to-5 hours are spent actually doing the work, which means that many of the evening hours will be filled with discussions, reading and writing assignments, and reflection. In short, interns will have the fullest schedules, and consequently will have the least free time, but also will have much to gain in terms of both professional development and personal growth.

2. Significant commitments: Interns are part of our professional 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 professional ethics and personal integrity, 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 at Dharmalaya Institute?

In addition to the general benefits of Dharmalaya Institute’s ethos, community, and natural setting, there are two advantages specific to our internship programmes:

1. 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.

2. Quality of engagement: At Dharmalaya 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 include them in every aspect of our projects (from the smallest details to the biggest leadership and management conversations) and give them real responsibility to grow into, with our full support and guidance.

Our current internship programmes

Dharmalaya Institute currently offers three different internship programmes:

• 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

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