During the summer, the Center for Victim and Human Rights (CVHR) had the pleasure of having two wonderful interns in our offices. Maria Chavez and Maria De Leon took part in the Indiana Latino Institute’s internship program, through which they were selected to be a part of the CVHR team as nonprofit management interns. They were involved in several CVHR projects, including working on CVHR’s 2018 Impact survey, post-training survey, sponsorship proposal, and many others.

Maria Chavez is an incoming Junior at IUPUI, where she studies Media and Public Affairs. Being a DACA student has inspired her to take on several leadership roles on campus and in the community. This fall she will be the President of the Latino Student Association at IUPUI, through which she hopes to create dialogue about social justice issues happening globally and in our community.  Because of her passion and vision to help create a safe-space on campus, she decided to intern at CVHR in order to better learn about victims and their needs. Maria Chavez hopes that her experiences at CVHR will help pave the way for her to one day create her own nonprofit organization centered around restorative justice and education.

Maria De Leon recently graduated from Crispus Attucks High School as Salutatorian. She is a Lilly Endowment scholar, who as a result will be attending Butler University to major in Peace and Conflict Studies and Political Science. She is also a proud first generation high school and college student. Maria is a young activist, and throughout her educational career she has made it her mission to always be committed to excelling in academics while raising issue awareness and increasing the social equity of others. She has been involved with the Domestic Violence Network for the past 3 years, working as a Student Leader to raise awareness and empowering her peers and community to engage in healthy and safe relationships. Maria hopes to one day become President and CEO of a nonprofit organization and run for mayor of Indianapolis. Her involvement with the Domestic Violence Network and her desire to continue raising awareness about domestic violence, encouraged Maria to intern at CVHR. Her goal for the summer was to learn about how nonprofit organizations can provide legal services to domestic violence victims.