Joseph Ceronsky

Washington D.C. Summer Internship Program Summer 2003

Joe interned with the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) which is an office within the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) was created in 1995 by the Violence Against Women Act of 1994.  One of OVW's main responsibilities is running the eleven different stop violence against women grant programs created and funded by the Violence Against Women Act.  OVW also handles the Department of Justice's legal and policy issues regarding violence against women, responds to requests for information about violence against women, and also works with other offices within the federal government to combine ideas, resources, and work to end violence against women.

Some of Joe's responsibilities included participating in an internal review board which read and scored campus grant applications and ultimately decided which applications to fund.  Another significant project Joe worked on at OVW was the creation of a new Web page on the office's Website.  He specifically needed to research and add information to the Website on how men can stop violence against women. Joe researched and compiled a list of men's groups and then contacted each organization to obtain permission to link their organization to the OVW site. 

According to a statement written by Joe, he participated in the summer program in order to obtain an internship in Washington, D.C.  While he enjoyed his experience at the Office on Violence Against Women, the summer program as a whole provided him with an extremely broad and valuable experience that was more than he bargained for.