Wokai Blog: Internships and social enterprise (starring Shawn, Vivian and Christine): Wokai China Microfinance Blog

At the moment we have three fantastic interns working at Wokai:

Christine: Camera assistant and soon-to-be microfinance expert

Shawn: Film maestro and translator

Vivian: Communications and translation guru

I am not sure how common it is in the mainstream business world for a company to be quite so teeming with interns. However, it is certainly something that typifies social enterprise. In my last job we had an ongoing cycle of three or four university graduates and undergraduates from all over the world helping out either in their holidays or as an accredited part of their course. It is great to have interns around not only (of course) for the valuable work that they put in but also for the fresh perspective that they give on what we are doing and what we can do.

The internships at Wokai are unpaid and we are therefore committed to making sure that they are beneficial to the interns in other ways. This involves giving them: − Introduction to microfinance − Experience of office work and professionalism − Something unusual for the CV − Experience in particular areas of expertise and interest

In fact, at the moment we are recruiting for a full-time intern to assist with our PR and marketing strategy- see here for the job description (中文）. As a one time intern at a social enterprise myself I would say that the big benefit of doing an internship here rather than in a corporate is that you get real responsibility pretty early on…. Just ask Vivian, Shawn and Christine!