Blog by Mensa Corinaldi from Sankofa Freedom Academy
During our senior year at Sankofa Freedom Academy, we are required to find an internship that relates to a topic we have to choose for our big senior project. The topic I chose is how public water supply is affecting certain neighborhoods negatively because the water supply isn’t clean. While doing research to support my topic, one of the places that I found was the TTF Watershed Partnership. TTF’s mission — to improve the watershed of our city while also educating people in the community about the problems with our water and why the problem exists — definitely fits well with my topic.
My parents own a vegan restaurant which has a six-stage water purification system that uses carbon, ultraviolet light, an ion exchange resin, and reverse osmosis so people can bring in their own 3-5 gallon water bottles and fill them up with clean purified water that they can put in their water dispensers. I have also been involved with multiple activities with my school that help with pollution such as picking up trash from parks.
Since I was a little kid, I have always been athletic and passionate about sports. I have always enjoyed going outside and getting involved in physical activity whether it’s playing football, basketball, or even tennis. I began to like the sport basketball more than most and the sport has molded me to like teamwork and working together to achieve one goal. Sports has related to science for me by making me want to learn more about the human body, health and how it works and also how it reacts to the environment. This then led to me to being interested in science throughout high school.
I have learned so much in the couple of days that I have interned here. Doryán has taught me about the Delaware River and how it is a source of our city’s water and how some of the many ways are water gets polluted. What I hope to accomplish is to learn even more about our watershed and to pass on further knowledge to others who may not know and who could possibly be part of the problem. What I love about this organization is how involved they are with the community despite them not having a place where the community can come to, so they go to the community. Also, I like how well they work together with many different organizations that have similar goals.
Interested in learning more about interning with TTF? Click here.
