Undercover Student: Blaise Hanson
by Blaise Hanson
As with all students my age in the UK (15 years old), I had to complete two weeks of work experience. When my mum had suggested travelling abroad to do mine, I, of course, obliged! I have an interest in international politics –specifically Southeast Asian politics – so Asia P3 Hub seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to learn about the field. Before I started though, I did not know much about Asia P3 Hub, so I was going in with a very open mind.
I had the basic understanding of what Asia P3 Hub did: I knew it was part of World Vision, a Christian NGO, but it quickly became evident that it was much more than that.
I was first introduced to the team during the Monday morning core team meeting. At first, the whole thing was quite daunting; they had lots of different events on their agenda and used terminology I had never heard before that left me quite flustered, but this only motivated me to gain a deeper understanding of how the company worked.
Asia P3 Hub definitely has a start-up feel to it, with a close-knit team, an extremely busy schedule and with a sometimes quite relaxed dress code. That being said, the know-how of everyone on the team put me at ease. Asia P3 Hub, which leverages it’s connection off of the well-established World Vision, has a clear purpose and is working to combat global problems in an innovative way.
My first job as part of the team of interns was to put together summarised case studies of projects where partnerships were used for a specific WASH goal (water, sanitation and hygiene). I found this particularly interesting as it had me doing research into WASH problems in Asia-Pacific, from Sri Lanka to Papua New Guinea.
Although this took a considerable amount of my time, as getting my head around it was tough at first, it really opened my eyes to how time management is needed for projects and how work needs to be efficient. The Asia P3 Hub team really showed me how important it is to work efficiently as it seemed they were always extremely busy, and therefore it would be quite easy to fall behind schedule.
Another job I had was to start a procurement process for some giveaway items. Before I started the task, I didn’t even know the word ‘procurement’ meant, let alone what needed to be done. Wayne was very kind and helpful and explained how the whole process worked and what would be required. It was probably at this moment that I realised I had a lot more to learn than I thought I did, and really changed my mindset for the next two weeks.
It was evident that I needed to be willing to learn and be ready to take on every little bit of information that passed my way, especially considering I had little experience in work life. By being motivated to keep up with work, I feel that I was able to take away so much more from my experience than I would have just observing how everyone works.
Lastly, I quickly saw that collaboration and teamwork was absolutely necessary if anything was to be done. Team members and interns had varying backgrounds (ranging from business to art) and no one can have specialised knowledge in every field and do everything on their own. So being able to communicate with a team and work effectively while doing so is very important.
In conclusion, doing an internship at Asia P3 Hub was an incredibly educational, informative and fun experience that taught me so much about the world awaiting me. I think that working efficiently, being able to learn with an open mind and working collaboratively have been my biggest takeaways from my experience. And what made the experience so enjoyable was that the Asia P3 Hub team was so accommodating and attentive during my time there.
Interested to intern or volunteer with us? Drop us an email!
