Around 2,000 Rohingya refugees have been resettled in Chicago, making it the largest concentration of Rohingya in the U.S. The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority group which has faced decades of persecution and marginalization in Myanmar. In 2017, a campaign of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Myanmar’s government displaced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya. More than one million Rohingya refugees currently live in camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. 

At the RCC, Shobhita assisted senior case managers as they helped Rohingya refugees transition into life in the United States, which included tasks such as helping people book doctor’s appointments, set up health insurance, pay utility bills, register their children for school or child care, and find jobs. She also assisted the program coordinator in planning and setting up events such as the weekly Prevent Diabetes program, and contributed to the children’s after school program, coming up with activities and games to further their English language skills.

Shobhita found her experience to be “eye-opening” and “very fulfilling.” “At RCC, I felt like I was finally at the right place doing the right thing…Doing good for the world can often seem like an insurmountable task, but working with RCC showed me the little ways in which people save the world. I spent so much time in the office doing things that were almost second nature to me, but seemed impossible to the people I was helping. It simply reminded me that doing good and being kind is far easier than we think. It also showed me a career path in non-profit work…an area I would really love to work in!”

An International Relations major, Shobhita has taken multiple courses focused on human rights. In Spring 2024, she completed a semester-long group project that developed a strategy to address the educational deprivations faced by displaced Rohingya children in Myanmar as part of her work in POLS 264: Human Rights Advocacy. Together with one of her partners, she presented on this project at the 2025 Student Symposium in a talk entitled “Changing the World in Five ‘Simple’ Steps: Applying New Tactics in Human Rights to Rohingya Children in Myanmar and Bangladesh.”

Shobhita applied for funding for her internship expenses through the Beloit College Common Grant application, and she received funding from The Weissberg Program in Human Rights and Social Justice and the Ivan Stone Internship Fund.