Lydia Grate has been announced as a member of the 2020 B.A. EmpowHER cohort, a program created by the B.A. Women’s Alliance for Women who are bold, unapologetic, and ready to spark change. Thirty-nine women from across the country were chosen for the 2020 program.
The EmpowHER initiative was designed as an eight-week intensive summer program in Washington, D.C. designed to support women in gaining D.C.-based internships. The program includes a spring and summer curriculum as well as internship support. Originally, the initiative included summer housing in Washington, but with the impacts of COVID-19 across the country, the program shifted to supporting local and remote internships.
Grate, who recently completed her first year at the Clinton School, will complete two internships this summer. With Heifer International, Grate will work on the organization’s Integrated Program Management System Initiative (IPMS) starting June 1.
“The goal of IPMS is to standardize Heifer International’s project management processes, including monitoring, evaluation, and learning across the regions of the world where they operate – The Americas, Asia and Africa,” Grate said. “My role will assist in the development of tools, templates, and guidelines throughout this process.”
Grate learned about the internship with Heifer International through Tiffany Jacob in the Office of Community Engagement at the Clinton School. But her interest in the global nonprofit goes back much further. She said she has been interested in the organization since sixth grade, when her class took a day trip to the Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Ark.
“It was an amazing experience and the first to expose me to the world,” Grate said. “Since then I’ve been curious about what it might be like to work for an organization that made such a profound impact on me. It was also a factor in coming back Arkansas to study at the Clinton School.”
For her second internship, Grate will complete a short-term project with Global G.L.O.W. (Girls Leading Our World). She will use best practices research to update the organization’s current employee handbook in a way that modernizes and simplifies the document.
Based in Southern California, Global G.L.O.W.’s mission is to create and innovate programs to mentor girls to advocate for themselves and make their communities stronger. Grate started her internship with the organization on May 29.
Before the outbreak of COVID-19, Grate was slated to complete her internship with the Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State. She said that she wanted to use these internship opportunities to develop meaningful professional development experiences.
“When my offer at the State Department got cancelled due to COVID-19, I began searching for positions that provided project management experience,” Grate said. “It also helps that the schedules for these two roles should work together nicely.”
EmpowHER participants get access to customized professional and leadership development opportunities, field-specific mentors, career coaching, and invitations to a variety of networking and social events. Grate said the program has already provided 1-on-1 mentor coaching and webinars on how to land an internship, résumé and cover letter writing, online branding and LinkedIn, internship success skills and working virtually, and knowing your rights/sexual harassment training.
As a first-year student, Grate was part of a team that spent the academic year researching the impacts of Thea Foundation’s Art Closet program in the Little Rock and North Little Rock School Districts. Grate interviewed teachers, school administrators, other stakeholders in the education system connected to Thea’s Art Closet.
Grate is a Peace Corps alum and a graduate of Arkansas Tech University with degrees in broadcast journalism, public relations, and speech communications. She has lived in six countries: Togo, The Bahamas, Dominican Republic, France, New Zealand, and Australia, and speaks French as a second language.
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