112 EMMY
Academy Foundation
Confidence
Fostered Here
Students from the
foster care system
flourish as summer
interns.M
aggie Bushiri
had never seen a
television set until
she was nine, when
she emigrated to the U.S. There
was no electricity in the refugee
camps where she and her family
had lived in Tanzania, having fled
the civil war in her native Congo in
which she’d lost her father and two
brothers.
So last year, when Bushiri
found herself on stage at the 70th
Emmy Awards, the moment was
surreal — as were those leadinguptoit.“Igottowalkthered
carpet,” Bushiri relates. “My dress
was getting complimented by the
A-listers!”
Bushiri was being
acknowledged as a participant
in the Television Academy
Foundation’s summer internship
program, which gives some of
the nation’s top college students
and recent graduates an insider’s
view of the industry through eight
weeks of on-the-job experience.
She was a production intern
at Shonda Rhimes’s company,
Shondaland, working on How to
Get Away with Murder.
Bushiri, who learned English
in part by watching television,
had come to her internship via the
Los Angeles nonprofit Alliance forChildren’s Rights, which provides
support and advocacy nationwide
for impoverished, abused and
neglected young people, including
those in the foster care system.
When Bushiri’s mother died,
eleven-year-old Bushiri and her
younger siblings were involved
with the system until they were
placed with an older sister.
This summer marks the fourth
year that the Foundation and the
Alliance have partnered to identify
candidates for the positions
funded by Dick and Noelle Wolf.
“There are too many young adults
aging out of foster care who are
struggling to lift themselves up to
career opportunities,” says Jennifer
L. Braun, president and CEO of
the Alliance. The Foundation’s
internship program, shenotes,“gives them hope and a real
platform to contribute everything
they have to offer.”
At Shondaland, Bushiri
worked in the Mu rder production
office, makeup room and art and
postproduction departments;
researched characters and visited
company vendors. Now twenty-
two, she graduated in June from
Los Angeles City College and is
transferring to Cal State University
Los Angeles.
Fifty-two interns are working
this summer in just about every
aspect of television, from agency
and animation to casting and
choreography, entertainment and
broadcast news, public relations,
directing, editing, music, physical
production and more. In off-hours, they attend professional
development and networking
events. This year’s group was
chosen from a field of 1,562
applicants from 384 schools in
forty-two states.
Working in unscripted
television is Alliance intern Josh
Elizondo, twenty-three, who was
in the foster care system from age
thirteen to emancipation. An actor,
musical artist and advocate for
those still in the system, Elizondo
wants to create content that, he
says, “will transform the narrative
of foster care from negativity to
positivity.”
A third-year student at
Santa Monica College, Elizondo is
interning at Anchor Worldwide,
where he’s been researching and
crafting pitches and participatingin calls with, among others, a
casting agent and a producer.
“They’ve asked for my opinion,” he
says of his hosts. “They’re treating
me like a partner, not an intern.”
The work has brought some
pleasant surprises. “I was unaware
of my skill level in the things
they’re giving me to do,” Elizondo
says. “I’ve surprised myself at
how quickly I’ve been able to
assimilate.”
Former Alliance intern Jaime
Gonzalez, on the other hand, felt
out of his comfort zone in 2017
in a corporate environment as
the first intern in a new category:
corporate citizenship and social
responsibility. Even so, having
studied and worked in fashion,
he credits the experience withintroducing him to costuming,
which he found he much preferred.
Now twenty-four, he works with
patterns as a “table person” at Bill
Hargate Costumes.
“Through the internship,
I got exposure to [industry]
people,” says Gonzalez, who was
in the foster care system from
age sixteen to twenty-one and
interned following his graduation
from Cal State Los Angeles.
“No one in my family was in
entertainment.”
During his internship,
he networked with costume
designers, including Kara Saun,
who hired him on the Disney
Channel movie Descendants 3.
Soon after being hired at Hargate,
he qualified to join Local 705, the
costumers’ union. “Creating is my
passion,” Gonzalez says.
“It sustains me.”
Academy Foundation
executive director Jodi
Delaney is grateful to
the key players who
have helped create and
sustain the endeavor. “By
developing opportunities
specifically for students
transitioning out of
fostercare,Dickand
NoelleWolf have greatly enhanced
our internship program,” she
says, “and we’ve worked with
the Alliance for Children’s Rights
to identify candidates for these
positions. Collaborations like
these make industry careers more
accessible to those who would not
normally have that access.”
And for second-year El
Camino College student Juan
Mendoza, who is interning at
Shondaland this summer, the
benefits were tangible even
before he started work. “It made
me believe in myself,” says the
nineteen-year-old, who was
in foster care from age eight to
twelve. “If I put my mind to it, I can
do it.”
—Libby SlateMaggie
BushiriJosh
ElizondoJaime
GonzalezJuan
Mendoza