The NGO Internship Programme is held annually by this Centre and has been overwhelmingly received. It collaborates with the non-governmental organisations (NGO) in Hong Kong, Mainland and Taiwan to provide internship opportunities for CUHK students who are expected to serve the community through concrete actions. Participants of the Mainland and Taiwan chapter will experience the culture and livelihood of the places, in addition to gaining knowledge of community work. This chapter has, however, been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic over the recent years and was forced to suspend until now.
The Hong Kong chapter of NGO Internship Programme also offers placements to CUHK students to allow them to gain workplace experience thereby identifying the direction for career development. More importantly, the programme facilitates these students’ understanding of the values and practices of the attached NGOs and enables their interaction with different local communities so as to stimulate ideas in positive social changes. Given the ravage of COVID-19, this programme could only resume in the second term of the last academic year after a more-than-one-year cessation. It is divided into term-time section and summer section.
Regarding the aforesaid term-time section, three students were selected from some 90 applications via interviews to serve as interns in the Jane Goodall Institute (Hong Kong) from mid-February to late-April last year. As for the summer section, it was completed between early-June and late-July of last year. About 70 students applying for the programme were interviewed and seven out of them could finally work in three NGOs, namely TWGHs iBakery, CarbonCare InnoLab and Gaia Education Limited. While the successful ones were required to reflect their learning in the papers upon completion of the programme, their attached NGOs should conduct individual assessment of them. The precious experience of three students of this pool of interns can be seen from here.
Of this academic year, the term-time section has already commenced to span the duty period from early-February through early-April. Three students were chosen by this Centre from 40 applications via interviews to take part in the internship offered by TWGHs iBakery and Gaia Education Limited. The major duties at the former organisation include handling documentation on standard operating procedure for beverage and on food safety guidelines, organising social inclusive activities, and assisting in general administration. In respect of the jobs to be done in the latter organisation, they involve developing social media promotion strategy, assisting in video-shooting of interviews, and offering administrative support to courses.
If there is any enquiry about the NGO Internship Programme, please contact Miss Wong of this Centre at 3943 9957 (Tel) or cathy@cuhk.edu.hk (Email).