Social Work & NGO Support

The internship serves as an investment, since it supports my job search, builds upon my studies, and contributes to my general employability. I am grateful that this remote internship platform provided me an opportunity to enhance my cultural intelligence around the world. The experience I achieved from this internship - by learning directly from organization founders - has opened my eyes to various social problems, such as poverty, drug addiction, domestic abuse, and so on. By exposing myself to different cultures, I hope to gain more understanding, awareness, and sensitivity toward differences around the world.

My internship experience has been terrific! I was excited to learn more about Tanzania and the stories of its country and its citizens. When reflecting on the assumptions or expectations I had before my internship, I had a passion for helping people, but I lacked insight and experience into what the real situations and/or problems are. After just a few days of learning and researching in this internship, I changed my view about real situations and the strategies of addressing problems and issues faced by people who suffer in poverty. I used to think that helping people is to connect resources for them and help them get out of difficult situations. However the first step is actually talking about the issues and bringing awareness. My main tasks as a Social Work intern involved case management and supporting assessments, assisting with therapy and support plans, and conducting research into solution findings within the medical field and realms of psychosocial support. I was able to provide information and potential treatment factors to my host organization that could benefit them and their patients in the long term. I feel more empowered in my field because I gained a bigger picture of what social workers look like and what they do, as well as how systems, cultures, and countries influence vulnerable groups. I am able to see some of the gaps between the theory and the real situation and the issues that have not been resolved yet, which has provided me a direction to keep learning and growing.

I entered this remote internship with a passion for counselling and therapy but with little applied skills. This Social Work internship provided insight into potential therapeutic professions, as well as my own capabilities within. I feel more empowered and confident having an idea of my role and gauging my experience level. While I appreciate I still have much to learn before I can undertake clients by myself, I feel that I have a good baseline to begin this journey. With the positive feedback from internship clients, I believe I will be able to positively impact more clients in the future. To briefly describe my internship role, I provided counselling assistance and educational support to different vulnerable populations on taboo topics. Speaking to parents, children and social workers, familiar with different kinds of abuse, I was able to encourage reconsideration of traditional punishments. The short term goals of this remote internship involved preparing presentations, documents and brochures for mental awareness and sexual health. In the long term I aided the mission to support struggling communities by empowering and educating them about psychological concepts. My biggest takeaway from this internship is the further understanding of cultural impact. Being in a western environment with a lot of access to healthcare and mental support, the internship reminded me of the current realities of others. This cultural impact will help me have an open mind when it comes to assuming cultural standards in clients and be more understanding when it comes to their backgrounds.

As someone that was unfamiliar with much of Africa's culture, it was insightful and eye-opening to hear the experiences of my supervisors in Tanzania. They were extremely informative in sharing the realities of many of the people living there, and although I had an idea of what that looked like, my supervisors helped me to understand it more deeply. Learning how Tanzanian culture factors into the socio-economic problems in the community was extremely important for me as an aspiring international social worker, because it forced me to reflect on all the ways in which cultures can have a drastic influence on how each society functions. Being under the supervision of two highly successful social workers, I felt empowered and inspired to be as passionate about social justice as they were. I had plenty of opportunities to learn from their wisdom and experience, and they gave me encouragement and hope to do well in my own professional journey. Being able to create educational documents and help with case management in a way that directly impacts a vulnerable community in Moshi, Tanzania was empowering.

I had the opportunity to work with the Community and Social Work Forum for a period of five weeks as a result of my social work internship with Intern Abroad HQ. My experience with the Community and Social Work Forum has been unique. This is indeed the word the best describes the five weeks I have spent working with the organisation. Although I have completed my internship remotely, thanks to the two professionals representing the organisation, I gained an original taste of the work that social workers do in Tanzania. Since our first interaction, I have been welcomed with kindness and I immediately felt part of the team. The whole internship program was person-centred, based on my personal and professional goals. The two professionals have been keen to ensure that each and every activity that we conducted contributed to the achievement of my objectives. I was always encouraged to share subjects of interest to me to be discussed within our sessions. Furthermore, thanks to the support I received and by virtue of our discussions, I have managed to identify areas of improvement in my practice. This fact in itself has enabled me to become a better professional. In this context, I have also felt very comfortable with sharing some of my struggles in terms of the work I conduct with my clients. These have been received with a non-judgmental and extremely supportive attitude, leading the professionals to share some of the struggles they have themselves encountered during their fascinating careers along with techniques and methods to overcome them. The two professionals have always been ready to share their wide expertise and knowledge with me. They have provided me with extraordinary advice and guidance which I am now applying in my work. It was an immense pleasure to work with such valuable, caring and open-minded professionals. With honesty, I would be honoured to work with the Community and Social Work Forum again. Thus, I strongly recommend this internship experience to anyone who is interested in making the world a better place and who is looking for a unique internship or volunteering experience.

Since the pandemic made it difficult to travel overseas during the summer, I decided to do an online internship. I did the Social Work internship out of Tanzania. I was placed in a community center that worked mainly with kids and I got to communicate with children, their families, and their teachers. My supervisors were very insightful and helpful along my experience. I learned that I enjoy meeting and interviewing different people and families and helping them on how they might overcome the problems they are facing. Working with different individuals can be challenging since each individual is different and is going through a unique set of problems. The solution must be specifically tailored for that individual and their needs. These communication and problem solving skills can be applied to any profession that seeks to help others overcome personal issues. This kind of skill set would be greatly beneficial to learn especially pursuing a career in social work. The internships manager would send weekly reminders for your reflection journals which are a huge help in developing yourself professionally during the experience. I would definitely recommend the online internships if traveling overseas is not possible at the moment!