Children in Wisconsin and South Africa now share a special connection thanks to Shiloah Coley, a journalism major who is also pursuing certificates in art and African-American studies.
Since January, Coley has been participating in the Madison Children’s Museum & Play Africa Internship (MCM-Play Africa), administered through the International Internship program (IIP), a unit of the International Division. Even among international internships, MCM-Play Africa is unique.
Students spend spring and fall semesters interning at the Madison Children’s Museum, where they curate exhibits, plan programming, work with children and parents, and provide other assistance to staff. During the summer, students are on-site in Johannesburg at Play Africa—a South African non-profit dedicated to creating safe and inspiring learning spaces for children. As an intern with Play Africa, students learn the inner workings of an NGO, create and execute exhibits, and interact with children and families.
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The success of Coley’s art project between MCM and Play Africa even opened doors for her at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Over the summer, Play Africa received a request from the Met to participate in #MetKids, a program to recreate images from the Met’s archives with a theme of their choosing. Play Africa asked Coley to develop a proposal…