Category: Charity Insights 2014

Infrastructure and I: Part 3 – Best Friends Forever

As promised, before I share with you all the exciting turns of events that have happened on the field of infrastructure, I will tell you a little about the technicalities of my Charity Insights story. So please, do stay a while and listen.

It all started when I was more or less scrambling for something to do for the summer after my first year. Many freshers seem unbothered about how their first summer in university is spent, but I felt like more new experiences could be amassed by working rather than chilling in Summer. Too bad many (read: nigh all) businesses look for penultimate year students for their internships, as I am sure many of you are painfully aware. I cannot quite recall how I came to be aware of the Charity Insights bursary, but I do remember not taking it too seriously at first. I mean, what could the non-profit sector possibly hold that I would be interested in? Sure enough, I found myself browsing through pages and pages of charities before the answer materialised in front of me – think-tanks. Research focused, analytically driven and often specialised in a narrow sector, think-tanks felt like the embodiment of myself in an NGO form.

Skipping a bit, I ended up making just a single speculative application for Charity Insights, to a think-tank I previously knew little about. Some thought was put into whether to send the application to HR or the person I would ultimately like to work with. I opted for the latter, which I think is a fair choice if the organisation is quite small. My advice to future Charity Insighters is to just be confident with your application. I had little prior work experience and were dubious about my other merits as well. Nonetheless my application received great interest from my supervisor to be. In my opinion, a Charity Insights internship is quite easily marketable to organisations, given its unique structure and short duration. On the other hand, once you have successfully found an organisation and have a clear-cut project in mind, the bursary is fairly straightforward to secure. The bottom line here is that the high chance of success makes taking your time to polish the application well worth it, in contrast to some advertised vacancies where there might be 200 applicants per internship and success rates are dismal. So if the thought of applying for Charity Insights ever crossed your mind, I highly recommend you to go for it!

And so we smoothly transition into week 3 at Green Alliance. In addition to continuing my project on data sources and work on the Infrastructure Pipeline (see previous post), I have done background work leading up to a short analysis summary and a blog post that is to appear in the Green Alliance blog in the near future. The responses to my emails from the institutions have been quite varied, some actually shedding light on the questions I had, some merely attempting to explain why no one seems to know how the numbers add up in a 3-year-old official paper.

I will save a more elaborate wrap up of my doings for the last blog, likely to appear in the next few days.

Twentieth Day

With less than 2.5 hours to go, the finale to my 20 days of intense interning at Sense About Science is rapidly approaching. It’s been a delight working with such a smart and passionate group of change-makers, and it’ll be a sad moment when the clock hits 16:00 and it’s time for me to leave.

Here’s a review of what I’ve spent my time at Sense About Science doing, and a bunch of cryptic images to go with them:

Screening Making sense of screening resource challenging me to explain the concept of screening, and its pro’s and con’s, with less than 200 words and a handful of whimsical diagrams. Looks easy, it’s really not, and working on it has provided incredibly valuable lessons on content presentation and proper communication of science ideas to the wider public. Also had the chance to email some of the UK’s top health experts to ask them to review the guide – goes to show what a big issue screening is in society and the need to be as perfect as humanly possible.
 Testing Making sense of testing resource. Similar to Screening, except in some respects even more difficult given that the topic is broader and has to challenge people’s inherent assumptions about over-the-counter/internet schemes. First draft ready.
 Radiation What is radiation? My absolute favorite project during the 4 weeks, with the chance to mess around with a silly presentation of coconuts and silly graphics to make convey serious knowledge about radiation – a very misunderstood topic in today’s world.
 Screening Screening for everyone? Inspired by one of my illustrations in Screening, this poster-sized infographic highlights the potential pitfalls of screening tests. Orange, bubbly, and people falling off the edge. First draft ready.
 AFE Ask For Evidence. Want omega-3? Eat fish or buy ordinary fish oil capsules, not extra expensive fancy ones which have more than you need.
Dissemination plan. My first project with Sense About Science during the early days of the internship, brainstorming a list of people who Sense About Science should contact to get their upcoming new resource far and wide and to the people who need them the most.
Maddox prize. Don’t really want to disclose the details of what I’ve been doing here, in case I say something I shouldn’t. Random fact: renowned Imperial academic David Nutt was the Maddox Prize recipient in 2013!

The end to 20 days this may be, it’s certainly not goodbye. I’m not done with my work at Sense About Science; over the next week I’ll be doing a bit of remote volunteering for a poster-infographic on common plant breeding techniques, and possibly a second radiation poster titled Health and radiation which explores further the effects of mobile phone use and household electronics. A commitment has also been made in volunteering at Sense About Science’s upcoming events. If there’s one thing I ought to learn from my first year at Imperial, it’s “don’t do stuff next year!”. I already broke that promise once, so let’s keep breaking it.

Today, however, is more than just the end of 20 days at Sense About Science. It marks the end of 8 full months of constant study, exams and work, and an entire year dedicated to exploring the world of NGOs, science communication and the public engagement of science. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tired to the core, but I’d be even more of a liar if I claimed this past year wasn’t an absolute blast. From Imperial Hub on the mezzanine floor of the Union Building (with its strange shaking floors), to the grandeur of the Royal Albert Hall and now Sense About Science in trendy Farringdon, I’ve came to know so many wonderful people and witnessed how their efforts will help change the world in all sorts of ways. It’s been a real treat being able to contribute to their efforts, and I hope my work has or will be useful.

Tonight I’ll be on a plane heading home, equipped with 15 episodes of Radiolab and rich memories to accompany me on the hours long trip. Tomorrow I’ll be half-way around the globe, reclaiming my room chair from the territories of my fat tabby cat, as per tradition of traveling away and coming home. Sometime somewhere in the near or distant future, the things that I have learnt and skills that I have developed will become useful once more.

Many thanks to all of the Sense About Science team – Victoria, Emily, Lauren, Prateek, Max, Julia, Chris, Sile, Ian, Grace and Tracey – for letting me participate over August, and to Charity Insights for the support.

I look forward to seeing what’s next.

 

Week 3 at the British Red Cross in Portsmouth

Ok, week 3 – What have we done?

I have finished writing up my report and have gone through and extended my points as Rachel had asked me to. I have checked all the spelling, grammar, punctuation and stats- so I think we are good to go! Phrasing of points is also key and parapharsing, though useful, can sometimes alter dramatically how well recieved the information is. It is funny how one word can totally change how people take things and since the report makes suggestions, this is important to consider.

I have a date set in my last week to allow me to feedback to the People and Learning team. I am going to have to make a PowerPoint to do that. I also had to write a memo for the area management team meeting, which Rachel has give out as a summary of my report before sending it out for real, so that it can be read and hopefully put into action by Senior staff ( Eek!!) and the volunteer council. So, hopefully, by making this report I will have helped the staff and volunteers of the British Red Cross in Hampshire Surrey and the Isle of Wight have their voices heard.

Some of the topics covered in my report have included Communication, People Management/ development and My Organisation. The aim is to find evidence for suggested improvements in the focus group, so that we can boost retention of volunteers. It has been a big project and a long one as it is sort of 3 projects in one . It started back in April and is due, well, next week! So it will be the end of a long process for Rachel and Chloe (the other intern), who have been working on it for 4 months collecting processing and writing up their work.

It has been lovely working here, and you do start to feel a part of the team, rather than just an intern who leaves in a few weeks. Members of staff do value your input if they ask for an opinion from past experience- it makes you feel like you are making an impact and genuinely helping the team on a project.

On a different note- how far do people commute to their place of work? For me it is about 40 mins on the train to Portsmouth from my family home ,which is great. I have been filling the time reading!

Final Tuesday

After having a long weekend with the bank holiday Monday it is weird that I am entering my final week. My internship will officially end next Monday accounting for the Bank Holiday.

My first ‘Closure’ project has come to an end after three weeks of working in the Admin team at Barnardo’s. I didn’t manage to get through the entire cabinet of documents, as I strongly overestimated the rate at which I was able to carry out the processes. So I have created an organised systematic process which will allow my colleagues to continue on with my project once my internship has come to an end. It has been different to what I initially expected the project would demand. It has been very dependant on using creativity to maximise efficiency. It has strongly developed my time management skills.

Now I have started my final project which is predominantly research based. In one sentence: I will be researching the demand for an LGBT clinic in Leeds. Barnardo’s have not established an LGBT clinic in Leeds to date. Hence I will be researching and contacting any current LGBT clinics not working through Barnardo’s in the Leeds district. Ultimately I will be providing my Sub-Supervisor with information gathered regarding current LGBT clinics and then he will determine whether it is feasible to create and request funding for a clinic or whether Barnardo’s will work in partertnship with a current clinic. The project will require a high level of communication based skills (and am sure they will build on them).

I am sorry for the lack of pictures in my Blogs. Most of the work that I do is CONFIDENTIAL. Hence if I take a picture in the office I run the risk of publicising confidential property.

Fifteenth Day

Time flies, and this week has honestly been the most busy week at Sense About Science to-date. Lots of things wrapping up and being reviewed, and lots of things to start.

Due to a lack of time I haven’t had the time to draw up a full blog post, or get some items reviewed for posting. In the meantime, though, do check out my first Ask For Evidence effort where I enquired for evidence behind Calamari Gold squid oil capsules: http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/a4e_examples_of_evidence_hunting.html#

First week at CABI!

Today completes my first week at CABI. I knew CABI was a bit outside London, but the walk from the train station in Egham this week has been a welcome surprise. The forested areas around CABI are fantastic and make for such a pleasant walk to work. I got lost in the forest on Thursday and ended up going further than the public path I was meant to take; I was a bit late for work, but the sights, sounds, and pleasantness of the woods reminded me why I have no love affair with living in London.

On to the work! I met with Peter Baker, the coffee expert of CABI, and we further defined the goals of my work for the next month. There are some MSc students I am getting data from this weekend and I hope to continue with some of the brilliant work they’ve started on. I’ll save a full summary of the background of the work for a later post, but in short we are working with HRNS to (1) analyse the coffee production data in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador to see the impacts of Coffee Leaf Rust, and (2) develop a model/simulation/game based on the results to explore how farmers and extension agents respond to climate and other market risks. While I don’t have the “right” numbers to fill in, I decided to follow the fail quickly paradigm and started drafting a model in excel on the first day. Here is where it is at on Friday and we’ll see where we want to take it next. My knowledge of VBA and creating user input forms on excel has greatly improved this week.

Until next week, Lee

Week 4 at RECLAIM

It is my last day at RECLAIM! I have had a great four weeks here. As the charity is so small everyone is really close and have made me feel very welcome. I will be sad to leave!

During my last week I have conducted two interviews with two 14 year olds from the Moss Side and Gorton projects. They were very thoughtful and helpful and glad to be involved in my work. I have used this information as a case study for my evaluation for RECLAIM. I have finished writing up my report, hopefully this will highlight the good work RECLAIM is doing with young people and also identify ways in which the projects can be improved.

We also took a group of young people to Bradford as part of the summer program. We went to the media museum where you could produce your own version of BBC News and then went to sample some local cuisine and the oldest Indian restaurant in Bradford. I think the young people are creative and intelligent and RECLAIM is needed to encourage this and give them the opportunities that they may not otherwise have.

I hope I have contributed towards RECLAIM’s amazing work and hope to work here again in the future.

Internship Visits and Cupcakes

Amy and I have been out on the road again since our last tour of Hampstead Heath, Vauxhall and the West End. This time we took in the sights of Moorgate, Victoria and trendy Clerkenwell with one mission in mind; to see how three more Charity Insights internships were progressing! Okay, with one minor detour for cupcakes at Bea’s of Bloomsbury…

 

blog pics

We got to catch up with Jay, Rupert and Chun-Yin interning at the British Red Cross, The Passage and Sense about Science respectively. What stood out about these visits was the variety that working in the charity sector can offer. At our visit to the British Red Cross we saw a working environment of being in a large office with a large building dedicated to the charity and hundreds of employees working on different tasks and projects. The Passage and Sense about Science showed us a more intimate office environment with a small team all working together and getting stuck in wherever help was needed. The projects also varied massively from software and IT solutions, policy and report writing, through to graphic design and communication. From speaking to all three students, they really have learnt so much in their time with their charity and have been given the time and flexibility from their supervisors to grow their existing skillset, be it doing Code Academy training or deciphering legal legislation and copyright laws.

Whilst there were differences to these internships, there were also some commonalities. All took on early responsibility, with Jay being put straight into an urgent project with a deadline of two days after his start date. Rupert was also keen to take the lead on his project and set about defining his research and initiating and setting up meetings to speak to important figures in the field. Chun-Yin has already made leaps to complete various infographics and posters on topics including Radiation and Screening; and still has a week to go in his internship! The supervisors of the internships (Andrew, Miranda and Victoria) were also hugely encouraging, passionate about what they do and really cared about their intern’s future development; not only the progress of specific projects they had been tasked with.

This summer really has been amazing so far for Charity Insights and we’ve loved hearing about your internships through your blogs. And there is still more to come; good luck to Anna and Chandrika who are starting their internships in September!

Week four/five: the end

It’s hard to believe that my time at St. Anne’s is over – four weeks has flown by! Over the past week (alongside my usual screening programme) I’ve been involved in several events with St. Anne’s, such as helping to run their service user drop-in session yesterday. It was a chance for people to make suggestions or raise concerns about the services on offer at St. Anne’s, as well as to sample the Krispy Kreme doughnuts on offer! I really enjoyed getting involved with the service users and hearing their opinions on the services they use everyday, and it really highlighted to me how important St. Anne’s is to some of these people. During my project I’ve seen the same faces passing through, whether it’s to get help with benefits, take a class in computer skills or even just to take a shower. I’ve been amazed by the sheer range of services and help available to anyone, all under one roof – and I feel really honoured to have been a (albeit small) part of it.

Anyway, back to my project. I’ve been analysing the data I’ve collected and have prepared a report for the staff at St. Anne’s about ARBD. It consists of the data analysis itself, an information leaflet about ARBD and some advice on the next steps to tackle this little-known condition. I really hope that with the data I’ve collected, St. Anne’s can begin to raise awareness of ARBD amongst their staff and their service users, eventually spreading this knowledge to other relevant organisations. ARBD is a serious condition that makes everyday life extremely difficult for those affected, and these people need to be noticed by clinicians and charity workers, and given appropriate help. My project will hopefully be the first step along this path.

To conclude, I’ve learnt a huge amount during my time at St. Anne’s, from data analysis and report writing skills to dealing with difficult people on a daily basis. It’s been immensely rewarding, challenging and above all fun! Although this is officially the end of my internship with St. Anne’s, I’m hoping to volunteer with them again in the future. They are truly an amazing organisation, and deserve all the help they can get.

Week 2 at the British Red Cross in Portsmouth

Hi Everyone!

So it has been a busy and productive week here! Last Friday after I wote my Blog post I went over our huge, very detailed spreadsheet  with the other intern, also called Chloe! ( As you can imagine this is quite funny and creates a touch of confusion!) We came up with lists of errors in the data collection and searched the data again for evidence for my report.

I have been typing up drafts of my report  this week and have shown it to my Line Manager Rachel who has given me feedback after my first attempt, which has been really helpful. I was glad that I had a good structure to my report sorted and that the information and links currently down were not overlapping the work done by Rachel and Chloe.

Rachel and Chloe are both looking at the different sets of data individually and making very detailed points from our data in their reports. Mine differs as I have to link the 2 data sets together and look at the broad trends, which is very different as it is ingrained in us from GCSE Level upwards  ‘DETAIL MORE DETAIL!! BE ACCURATE, BE EXACT!!’.  So, when I had my initial table of: the areas of disscussion,  areas for improvement as suggested by volunteers, and detailed points from the retention study with percentages/ numbers ,and quick starting point  to expand for report; being told it was great, but too detailed for my report was mindblowing .  You can imagine my inner science geek threw their scientific calculator out of the lab and had a little tantrum.  As someone who is used to writing less on trends (though trends are none the less important!) ,then going into far more detail and refering to exact points on graphs to show outliers, refering to differences between  datapoints , and backing  all my statements up religiously …. This has been a bit of a shock to the system.

All this said, I very pleased that I am learning new ways of doing things and writing this report, I feel, has made me more confident in planning essays and how to put information and data from different sources together. Hopefully useful skills to take in to second year of Imperial and will help me improve my performance in assessment.

The hard work is paying off!!
The hard work is paying off!!