6th - 20th August 2023

Supervisor: Ella Thomson, Programme Manager, International Volunteer HQ

Description:

As a Special Needs Care volunteer in Vietnam, I will be working in hospitals and community clinics in Ho Chi Minh City, providing support to children and young people, some of whom have disabilities and birth defects attributed to Agent Orange from the Vietnam war. Tasks include:

• Assisting with rehabilitation exercises and therapeutic treatments.

• Helping with meals and washing up.

• Playing games and arranging music and arts activities

• Supporting renovation work like painting murals

• Helping with fundraising initiatives

• Teaching English to local staff

Reflection:

My experience taking part in the Special Needs Care volunteer program in Ho Chi Minh has left me with both moments of meaningful impact and those of letdown. My expectations for the experience were that I would be dedicating the vast majority of my time to my placement at the local hospital. As a volunteer program, I assummed that this would be the obvious focus of my trip, and it was, to an extent. Although, I was surprised at how relaxed and casual the program actually was on the ground. The other volunteers and the management seemed to have a pretty offhand and flexible approach to volunteer hours, which took me a while to get used to. We were also at our placements for only 3 hours a day - which I found incredibly frustrating and difficult to understand.

Description:

I travelled to Singapore to complete a short internship, working with the Expat Living Publications team. My main duties included clerical and administrative support, data analysis and data checking, proof reading, and market research focused on customer circulation.

Reflection:

The roles which I adopted during this internship were quite varied and I learnt a lot from the range of tasks that I was required to complete. The generic clerical and administrative support tasks like maintaining records and preparing data reports were pretty tedious, even though I recognise how important they were within the organisation. This type of work required excellent organizational skills, and at times, especially after repeatedly doing this each day, I found my concentration wandering.

The data analysis and checking tasks required me to review the ‘mail shots’ and check that details were still current. This involved processing and interpreting large amounts of data to identify patterns, and trends, which could be amended (eg physical subscription to online subscription) and improve the reach of the magazine. I enjoyed the proofreading element of the internship as this required careful attention to detail when reading, which is something I enjoy doing. It was quite satisfying to correct errors in written documents, such as spelling and other mistakes in grammar. The market research element of the role also focused on customer circulation and involved gathering information about customers, such as their demographics and buying habits. It was interesting to see how the audience/readers have changed over time, and how the Expat Living Magazine has adjusted to make their articles more newsworthy and appealing, as opposed to being full of advertisements and little else.

One of the things I found unusual was the shared office environment and how Expat Living Magazine shared its workspace with other organisations - sometimes I was confused as to who was actually working for the organisation. I enjoyed working with my supervisor and being treated differently as an intern with more responsibility than I would normally receive.

Overall, the skills I used and gained during the internship are valuable and I am glad I did not feel out of my depth when working with other professional people.

Letter of Reccommendation: