For any budding interns out there here's a diary of my working week to give you a taste of what it's actually like to intern for Oxfam.
Monday
Get into the office at 9am, turn on computer, open up diary and write to do list for the day. At 9.30am I head downstairs into our diary meeting. I'm not sure if this happens at Oxfam House (if it does it'll be each individual team not the whole office) but at Oxfam Scotland whoever is in the office meets up and fills everyone else in on what they'll be working on this week. I got congratulated on how runner recruitment has gone so far; so that gave me a happy little buzz for the rest of the day.
I spent the morning emailing runners, updating spreadsheets and speaking to runners on the phone.
At lunchtime I went back into the meeting room for a talk from two lovely ladies that had come to visit the office. One lady was the Oxfam GB Regional Programme Funding Manager for South Asia. She explained about the 6 year "We Can" programme that aims to end violence against women in the region. In addition she explained how Oxfam India was established and what programmes and campaigns they will be running in India. They too are aiming to end violence against women. Their website can be found here.
We then heard from the Country Director for Pakistan. She told us about the impact the floods have had and what is happening now. **This was really hard to hear but also very inspiring as I know the money our Oxfam runners are raising in the Edinburgh Marathon Festival will help those in Pakistan and those in future emergencies.
In the afternoon I helped Helen (the Oxfam Do intern) pack up boxes to be delivered to Oxfam shops across Scotland for the scottish launch of Oxfam Do. If you're near an Oxfam Shop on Saturday 12th Feb go in, try some lovely Fairtrade goodies and find out about "Doing the DO".
Left the office at 5.30pm.
Tuesday
I worked in a bar all day to help fund my internship.
Wednesday
I had a huge to do list today, so I plugged myself into Fearne Cotton and later Greg James and got on with it.
I spent the day working on recruitment of runners. This is quite a broad thing to do but it basically involves looking at which groups of people run and promoting Oxfam as a charity to run for.
I got some careers advice from the lovely ladies in my office. (There is a strong belief in Oxfam that interns should be given a great deal of careers advice and help.) I read up on whats going on in the third sector as it's important to have something to talk about at interviews besides your work experience. This mainly included reading up on marketing and fundraising and I'll post some links to useful sites.
Thursday
I spent the morning answering runners questions. Then I legged it into town for a quick lunch shift at the bar before a 1-1 meeting with my line manager.
Then....
I went to a knitting class! It was so much fun and not old-fashioned at all. I'm going to knit some squares for the IWD quilt that will be displayed at the Tramline in Glasgow. I've also found out that there's loads of knitting clubs around Glasgow so I'll add a few to the Glasgow Life page.
Friday
Worked at the bar all day. Tonight I'm going to be blogging and knitting. Tomorrow I am off to Edinburgh to help out in a bag pack for Oxfam.
** The floods in Pakistan have affected 20 million people and they covered an area the size of England! There was no warning that they were going to happen as forecasts for the year had predicted that the season would be normal and that Pakistan could even expect 30% less rain. The waters destroyed homes, crops, livestock and took many lives. In some places the water was 20-30ft deep. At present a food crisis is developing and UNICEF are trying to establish how serious it could be. 1 million people are in an emergency state and 6 million have no shelter.
You might not have realised the floods were so bad as there wasn't the same level of media coverage as there was for the earthquake in Haiti. I found a blog post that discusses why this might be.
No comments:
Post a Comment