Ashlynn Chong has always loved music. In fact, the 14 year old from Los Angeles, who can play 10 instruments, is currently on tour with the musical group Kidz Bop. When she’s not going to school or performing, however, Chong is a junior intern at USC Shoah Foundation.

“It is such an amazing opportunity, and I have already learned so much,” Chong said of the junior intern program, which she is participating in for the second year.

Junior interns are middle and high school students from around the country who gather to learn about digital literacy, testimony, and the importance of memory, while completing projects and attending field trips. The 2014-2015 junior interns, the program’s inaugural class, traveled to Poland to attend the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. This year, the program has been expanded to 38 students. Chong joined the program this year.

“I feel like I have already learned so much about the tools and skills I need to have in order to take action and help people and communities,” she said. “By the time this internship ends, I will have learned and done even more.”

Monthly meetings are held at USC, while the students not from Southern California Skype in. Chong said she enjoys attending the meetings and hearing what other junior interns have to say.

“Everybody has their own opinion and sees things from their own perspective, and I learn so much when I listen to and participate in the discussions we have during meetings,” she said. “It is an environment where we are equal without being completely alike, and everybody’s opinion is respected.”

“Having access to music growing up made such a positive difference in my life."

As his or her big project for the year, each junior intern puts together a community service project. Chong is combining her love of music with her interest in the work of USC Shoah Foundation to put together a benefit concert with proceeds going to programs that bring music to schools.

“Having access to music growing up made such a positive difference in my life, and I want to be able to do that for other people,” she said.

Being involved with the junior intern program also gave Chong the opportunity to film a Public Service Announcement for the Institute. The PSA was aired on Comcast Cable systems around the country in order to raise awareness of the partnership between USC Shoah Foundation and Comcast. The two organizations have a five-year partnership to create the annual “Days of Remembrance: PastFORWARD” series. Chong said her lines were based on something she wrote in response to the Institute’s “#BeginsWithMe” hashtag.

“We’re all human. Our humanity unites us but it’s also what tears us apart,” Chong said in the PSA. “I promise to learn from testimony so survivors of genocide can be a guide in my life, to help me make the right choices, and understand how I can change the future for the better.”