Creating opportunities and building communities with the Fi Wi Road Internship

The Fi Wi Road Internship began as a collaborative project in 2021 to provide Black-heritage geography and geoscience undergraduate students across the UK with a space to develop a new idea of what geography could look like. Now an annual summer scheme, it offers interns one-to-one mentoring, skills workshops and hands-on research experience. The Society is a partner of the scheme, which also includes the opportunity to work at our Annual International Conference.

Bilan Abdullahi and Mia Yearwood are two of the interns who worked at this year’s conference. Bilan has just completed a geography degree at the University of Exeter where she wrote her dissertation on Somali diaspora women’s experience of geotrauma, while Mia has just finished her first year at Durham University, developing interests in cultural and urban geography, specifically on issues surrounding geopolitics and sovereignty. Both heard about the internship through their wider university networks – Bilan through the Black geographers’ network and Mia through her university’s careers network.

Fi Wi Road was set up by Patricia Noxolo, Professor of Human Geography and Chair in Postcolonial Geographies at the University of Birmingham, and Cynthia Nkiruka Anyadi, a PhD Candidate at Royal Holloway, University of London. Both Pat and Cynthia have been very inspirational to Mia and Bilan, with their successes clearly highlighting what’s possible.

Bilan commented: "Pat and Cynthia have been spearheading this internship with a clear passion for creating inclusive, safe spaces for Black geographers whilst bolstering our own self-development, skills and networks. I am so grateful to them for their wisdom and kindness."

The internship has an important social element, providing opportunities to meet like-minded geography students. Bilan said: “Finding a community in geography has been invaluable, and healing to me…it feels like justice within geography in a space where we have historically been under-represented.”

Discussing how geography is sometimes considered a more theoretical subject and not always the most structured in its career prospects, Mia said that Fi Wi Road is a contrast to that, “offering genuinely dedicated support and contact, the longevity of which is unique to this experience.”

While the internship offers a structured experience, Mia, Bilan and the other interns are also given a lot of independence and the opportunity to develop a variety of academic and professional skills, including contributing to the running of the Fi Wi Road Fair, which took place at the University of Glasgow in September.

Bilan said: “We've been the ones calling the shots for most of this programme, which has been very rewarding. I've gotten to see my ideas and hard work shown in something tangible and as well as attaining practical skills in project development and management, I have also become more confident."

Mia added: “It’s given us invaluable experience and opportunities to do admin, communicate and delegate!”

The internship continues to support Black-heritage students across the UK in building networks, voice and experience, find out more on fiwiroad.co.uk