Hey everyone, this is my second post since beginning my internship at seen and heard. I am now almost halfway through my internship and time has flown by!For those of you who didn’t read my last post, Seen and Heard is a not for profit youth programme in the shire of Mundaring which provides the youth in the eastern hills areas with a voice, ranging from hosting events, to campaigns for the youth in the area. Over the past few weeks I have mainly been focussing on the upcoming school holidays and an event which will be held in November called the "About YOUth Health Expo"The About YOUth Health Expo is this event which we are holding in which involves us inviting 200 year ten students to come to a venue for the day and learn all about health and well being. As their schools are small, there is not much information or many services to help and educate them about their health and wellbeing as there is in the city and at schools that most of us have attended. The day has been organised so that students are split into groups of 30(ish) students and they will rotate through workshops for the morning then in the afternoon they get to do some really fun physical activity like playing laser tag and basketball shootouts.
As we are not for profit we have to try and get workshops and speakers in for free as well as as much promotional material as possible. It has been my job to research and call as many organisations and programmes as possible to try and get them to come and teach or donate anything we can to hand out to the students and on the day. It sounds pretty simple but it’s surprising how hard it is to actually get in touch with the right people, and once you eventually do, they have to approve it through someone who has to ask someone else, who has to check if they have anything etc... so it involves a lot of calling, emailing and confirming. I have also been creating and emailing out info packages to these organisations about the expo to try and get them interested in helping out.
One of the hardest things I have found is, because we are located in the hills (45mins from Bentley campus) it has been hard to get anyone to agree to actually come out here on the day. I have also discovered that you have to chase things up if you want to get the ball rolling, if someone doesn’t call you back or return your message in a few days, then call them again until you get in touch! It’s like trying to find an internship again!
Aside from helping organise these events I have been going out with some of the staff here to promote Seen and Heard in the community. This has involved a lot of sausage sizzles for the youth in the area, as well as visiting schools and putting on a “Youth Space” at lunch time which involves us playing music and setting up games and info stalls in their canteen and undercover areas where they can just hang out and find out what Seen and Heard is all about. This has also given us a chance to find out what the Youth want from us and what sort of events they would like.
So far I have really been enjoying my time working at Seen and Heard and I really like the organisation and what they are doing as I had never really heard of them before my internship. I have been so busy with heaps of work but I’m writing a blog post, not a novel so I’ll save it for next time!
I hope everyone else is enjoying their internships as much as I am!
Until next time
- Caitlin
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