Author: atownsen

Placement & Internship Officers on tour….

Helen and I have been really enjoying reading everyone’s blog posts about their Charity Insights experience. We thought it was about time we also added a post to the blog!

Last week we were able to visit Isabelle, Clara and Kristiana to hear about some of the fantastic work they have been doing with their charities.

Our first visit was to Isabelle who has been working for Rethink located in Vauxhall. The office is located on the fifteenth floor of a high rise building nicknamed “Charity Towers” as it hosts many charities including Macmillan and Comic Relief (it even has a charity recruitment agency inside).

20 Participants for Charity Insights 2014 announced

The Careers Service are thrilled to announce the Charity Insights participants for 2014. The standard of entries this year was really high and we have some fantastic projects and charities our students will be working with. Our 20 participants include:

  • Rupert Belsham, 1st year Physics, The Passage
  • Nicholas Burstow, 2nd year Medicine, Multiple Sclerosis Trust
  • Jun Cao, PhD Medicine, The George Institute for Global Health
  • Anna Cupani, PhD Chemical Engineering, Sense about Science
  • Isabelle Erbacher, 2nd year Medicine, Rethink Mental Illness
  • Martha Hilton, 2nd year Physics, RECLAIM
  • Rebekah Hodgkinson, 1st year Biology, The Derbyshire Wildlife Trust
  • Clara Hurst, 2nd year Chemistry, Thomas Frederick Willets Foundation
  • Ramandeep Kang, 2nd year Physics, Barnado’s
  • Julia Langer, PhD Medicine, Population Health Genomics Foundation
  • Juha Leppanen, 1st year Maths, Green Alliance
  • Elizabeth Mitchell, 2nd year Biochemistry, British Heart Foundation
  • Chandrika Nair, PhD Microbiology, The Small Piece Trust
  • Lee Pearson, PhD Centre for Environmental Policy, CABI Trust
  • Vanessa Place, 1st year Biochemistry, St Anne’s Community Services
  • Chun-Yin San, 2nd year Biomedical Science, Sense about Science
  • Jay Shah, 2nd year Physics, British Red Cross
  • Chloe Thorn, 1st year Biomedical Science, British Red Cross
  • Thomas Windle, 4th year Mechanical Engineering, Cornwall Wildlife Trust
  • Kristiana Xhuxhi, 2nd year Biochemistry, RSPB (Wild about Hampstead Heath)

Well done and good luck to all our participants!

Some fantastic feedback!

Well it’s the end of the first week of the autumn term and all but one of the Charity Insights internships has come to an end. We have had some fantastic feedback from our charity partners. Here are just a selection of their comments:

“Will was an enthusiastic, well liked and respected member of the team. I think he exceeded expectations and that is in the light of having arrived with an excellent CV in the first place. The work he has undertaken with a creative, methodical and detailed approach on Social Return on Investment is invaluable.” Richard Mills, Big Issue

“Alex has been very enthusiastic, diligent and hardworking, and full of good ideas, and has been a real pleasure to work with.

Visit to Idea

Yesterday Eileen and I popped along to Shoreditch, East London to visit Eleanor who is hard at work at Idea (the international debate education association). Eleanor has been researching female participation at debating competitions which has meant analysing a huge amount of data!

Eleanor’s supervisor Manos told us a bit more about the charity. We were surprised by its size; the website receives up to 3 million unique visitors in a year and Idea has offices in several countries. Interns at Idea often later go on to be full time members of staff at the organisation so Eleanor is getting some great experience.

Ben Fernando – first day at work!

So I’m just on lunch break for my first day at work! I’m at LUCIA (Life Uplifted by Change in Africa), a small Birmingham based charity that works with women and children in Ethiopia. I’ve been working with them for a while  now doing fundraising, and I decided to do Charity Insights so that I could get more involved with the research and problem-solving skills that they do.  You can find out more at http://www.luciacharity.org.uk/

So far I’ve had the usual introduction and health and safety talk, and discussed my project with my supervisor. Initially, I’m going to be looking at how to get funding for the grassroots projects that they’re looking at in Rural Ethiopia.

Internships are well underway!

The first of the Charity Insights participants started their internships last week & Eileen and I are delighted to see the blog posts starting to come in. We are really looking forward to hearing more about everyone’s internships.

We have another participant to announce – Will Prince, third year Physics who will be doing his internship at The Big Issue Foundation.

Just before the end of term we ran a preparation workshop for our participants. This was a great chance for all the interns to meet each other and to hear about the projects that they will be embarking on!

Charity Insights Bursary award winners announced!

After some thorough interviews with our shortlisted applicants the Charity Insights participants for 2013 so far have been confirmed as:

Well done to everyone!

Applications are in!

Eileen and I have enjoyed reading all the applications for the charity insights scheme. There are some really fantastic organisations our students hope to work with from the Durham Wildlife Trust to the Big Issue.  We are looking forward to meeting the shortlisted applicants at interview over the next few weeks!

At interview the applicants will be required to do a 10 minute informal presentation about their chosen charity and project as well as answering some interview questions.

Good luck to all!

Amy