The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is excited to share that we'll be participating in Outreachy, a paid internship program to help those who are underrepresented in tech start contributing to free software projects.

In past years, the FSF has helped GNU projects participate in Outreachy by providing financial sponsorship for interns. This is the first year that we'll be working with an intern to help them to explore even more ways people can contribute to the fight for user freedom.

Outreachy is important to us for a number of reasons:

• We've made growing the community a priority. The High Priority Projects list calls on the free software community to "encourage contribution by people underrepresented in the community." This is one of the ways we can help contribute to that goal.

• Representation matters to us. Better representation in free software is something personally important to the staff of the FSF -- nearly half of us (and the entire campaigns team) are women, our deputy director is Asian American, and we've all had the experience of finding our place in the free software community.

• Strong communities make strong movements. Most importantly, we know that a variety of experiences and viewpoints -- which comes from having a broad range of activists, contributors, enthusiasts, and users -- creates a strong, robust community that will have the power needed to help user freedom triumph in a world where the status quo is proprietary.

We have three possible projects for interns. We're looking to work with someone to update the Email Self-Defense Guide (ESD). There are a wide range of ways to get involved, including design, illustration, and writing. On the more technical side, there are projects on working on Trisquel GNU/Linux and the Free Software Directory, building MediaWiki skills, responsive theming, licensing and privacy, and documentation.

Interested in being an Outreachy participant with the FSF? Please read our community page!