Candice, Honours Psychology
Internship Country: Lesotho
Canadian NGO: Alternatives
Local NGO: Lesotho Association of Teachers
My internship was with the Lesotho Association of Teachers. My primary responsibility was to do resource mobilization and establish a curriculum model. Usually, I prefer to find possible grants that my organization can apply for during the first part of the week. Then, I did some research on the curriculum model.
I felt lucky that I was not working alone with the NGO. I had a colleague who came from the same university as me. We always shared our ideas. It feels so good when you have someone to work with and with whom you can get feedback. I enjoyed the feeling of teamwork during the project, which required us to complete an EU proposal within a limited time. The proposal was about European Commission on Human Rights and Democracy. Our whole team lacked any similar experience with writing an EU proposal. Therefore, we chose to work together to figure out where we should start. Also, I was stressed and extremely busy with my graduation application. It took some days to re-balance my personal life and the work I had. During this time, my colleague gave me lots of support. This experience made me realize the importance of teamwork. In addition, this internship improves my multi-tasking skill when having stressful tasks to complete. Through this experience, I can better cope with multiple stressors from different resources. Also, I found my favourite way to relieve stress: working out. I believe that in the future, I can handle more tasks at the same time.
The most important thing I learned from this internship experience is the difference between school and work. At school, I used specific criteria and evaluation standards for every assignment and project. All I needed to do was follow the guidelines and meet the requirements. However, there are no specific when you are in a job. I had to decide what my project should look like, what elements should be included in the project, and how detailed every aspect should be. All of these components needed to be determined by myself. Every decision I made would directly affect my work and my organization. My responsibility was more important than before. I may need more time to adapt to this. It was a big challenge for me to overcome during this internship. Also, it prepared me better to deal with a similar situation in the future. In addition, I also enhanced my self-motivating skills. No one would push me to move forward during work. I had to set different goals for myself and keep working on them. Overall, this internship experience allowed me to understand how an NGO operates and it's daily work.