What is it like to work as a virtual intern for Disability Wales? We have welcomed many eligible students in Wales to join us as interns for a short period of time. Our most recent recruit was Kirusha, a finance student at Swansea University, who joined us for a 10 day internship.
We couldn’t let her leave us without writing about her experience. In this blog post, Kirusha reveals all about her time with us.
Working as a virtual intern for Disability Wales: Kirusha’s experience
As my work placement is coming to an end, I will be discussing my experiences working with Disability Wales. With the help of GoWales, I have had an extremely successful and informative experience with Disability Wales for the past ten days.
As a third-year student at Swansea University, studying finance, and living with my health condition, I never really got the chance to gather the confidence I needed to complete a work placement. But then, GoWales offered me a rare placement opportunity doing social media marketing.
Having previously had no work experience in the field, this opportunity through Disability Wales has truly equipped me with the necessary confidence and skills needed to later thrive in various workplaces.
In spite of my fears of beginning this new venture, and the weary thoughts of how I was going to get the most out of my placement online, I can proudly say I have gained a huge amount of skills which will later benefit me enormously.
WHAT THE PLACEMENT INVOLVED
At first, I was not aware of what Disability Wales do, and having never worked in such a professional environment, I had no idea what to expect.
The pressure seemed massively daunting. However, after a virtual meeting with DW, this pressure eventually eased as I was reassured and instructed on what to do and how to gain the most out of my work placement.
Discussing my skills and experiences during the meetings helped to ease my concerns, and I can now proudly say that I have completed Infographics to promote a webinar, as well as touching on social media marketing, where I drafted posts for Disability Wales’ social channels.
I even had the privilege to schedule Facebook and Twitter posts myself, further enhancing my experience as it was a task that I was directly responsible for.
This placement has been tremendously beneficial in building my confidence, as well as improving my analytical skills whilst reading a multitude of articles at a time In order to select the appropriate article to be quoted on social media for the audience to see.
Whilst completing the work assigned to me, I came to naturally appreciate all that the organisation does for disabled people.
The positivity they bring by promoting the Social Model of Disability is something I tremendously applaud. Being a non-disabled person myself, I had never really came across any disabled person before to even begin to understand the difficulties they face in their day-to-day life.
For this reason, I strongly support the ideology of how the Social Model of Disability places the onus back on society to remove the barriers, rather than seeing people’s impairments / health conditions as the problem.
I would definitely say this work placement has allowed me to develop empathy for others as I learned more of people’s situations from all walks of life.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I would like to express how supportive and helpful the staff at Disability Wales have been. I was free to ask as many questions as I wanted in relation to my tasks and was provided regular feedback along with advice on the work I completed.
This placement has given me the opportunity I need to boost my independence and confidence, and I am enormously grateful for the advice that I know I will take forward with me in my future careers.
Kirusha Jeyarajah, virtual intern 2020
Thank you to Kirusha for her contributions to Disability Wales during her internship with us. We are always delighted to welcome students to our team. To find out more about student internships, click here.
