Tori Steeves

Oh hey...

As many of you know I have recently graduated univeristy and was going though some sort of post secondary edcuation completion crisis. I suppose this is attributed to the fact that I did not apply for grad school right away, and to be perfectly honest I think this has been the best decision I could make for myself. What it all came down to was: what other time in my life will I have no debt, no committmenst, no partner, no meaningful job, yadda yadda yadda the list could go on.... So, I started applying for internships, and applying for instenships and applying for internships and just when I was scared to death I would be living in Moncton for the rest of my life, working at a call center and wasting my degree I got an internship!

I am going to be a development officer for CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) and DPI (Disabled Peoples International)!! My work in Canada will be a 5ish week training in St. John's NFLD which I am totally excited for followed by 6 months in Peru. I will be living in Lima and working for La Organización Mundial de Personas con Discapacidad, my job will

be to rub elbows with diplomatshold workshops and work with a small group of women to start small business initatives all for people with disabilities, both physical and mental.

I am very excited about my position and know that I will be a great match for this. This is a very exciting time for disability rights since the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Optional Protocol was recently signed on by many countries. There is no better time than now to make changes and proudly proclaim rights for disabled people.

I won't lie, I am nervous. This is aminly centered around the fact that I haven't spoken fluent Spanish since I was in high school, but I amreally putting my nose to the grindstone now and working on that.

Thanks for everyones support and love. By sure to check this often once I am up and running. Depending on how demanding my internship is, I am expecting it will be quite demanding, and how quickly I adjust to Lima, my living situation, etc this should be a very comical, colorful, loud and all around uniquely Tori experience that will be fun to read about.