I did my internship in South African!

I did my internship in South Africa!

Two CityU of Hong Kong Students' Internship Sharing

Since 2022, Wubuntu's Internship Programme has provided online and on-site internships to 95 students from Oxford University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong, and Hong Kong Baptist University. These students have participated in internships at dozens of African universities, arts centers, non-profit organizations, as well as companies to support their impactful projects. The students first attended two intensive training sessions on "Intercultural Communication in the African Workplace", and they were then put into online internships with South African organizations in full swing. Under the guidance of the South African staff, the students completed their professional tasks. They worked 20 to 25 hours a week online, and at the end of 8 to 10 weeks of work, the students formed deep friendships with African organizations and successfully obtained their internship certificates. The South African online internship program allows participants to enjoy the original teamwork experience from Africa without leaving home, significantly broadens their horizons, improves their intercultural communication skills, and adds a highlight on their CV - African work experience.

Yumiko’s Sharing

Hi, everyone. This is yumiko. Working in Anthropology in Southern Africa broadened my horizon—my first time working in a foreign company. The culture, working style, and aims are unforgettable. In southern Africa, Asna is the most significant anthropological professional association. Asna was elected as a representative member among seven Southern African countries. This firm is cultural globalization working style. Multilingual to corporate along with different members, Meanwhile, Asna's official language is English. Through the dissemination process, mutual exchange, influence, and global circulation to other regions with the journal Anthropology. To contribute and support anthropological research.

Through this internship, I found that Anthropology mainly studies the fundamental theories and knowledge of anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies and concurrently majors in four aspects: cultural anthropology, archaeological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and physical anthropology. Conduct comprehensive research from the perspective of human beings, including the biological and cultural nature and the origin and evolution of human beings today.

My main job is creatively promoting Asna's company on the Internet, publishing short articles in newspapers to promote the company's latest trends, translating texts, introducing Asna to more people, and joining our Asna family. How I work online differs from physical work: flexibility, such as meeting for 30 minutes daily to discuss and report work progress. The degree of freedom is high, and the working time is allocated oneself daily. There is no limit to the completion of the specified time. It can be completed within one hour or 11 hours. The communication method is convenient, and you can communicate with your boss and colleagues through WhatsApp, email, and video. The above three points show that Asna is very inclusive of its employees and has a loving attitude towards cooperating with them. The above examples show that working in non-virtual work cannot be experienced.

In the traditional working way, a report is written for the leader after the missions or programs. At present, we are going through the covid era. Most companies permit colleagues to work from home, which means working online. Now, virtual working become normal, and fluency operations are applied in any firm. My perspective on a working internship in Asna in a virtual way is that face-to-face working becomes the 2D version of online working. Without group interaction with colleagues, e.g., I am having lunch together or having a drink after the whole day works. All of Asna's operations mainly adopted the software social Applications to conduct. WhatsApp, Google meetings, e-mail, and recording the meeting are indispensable. Physical work might consist of many elements that need to be aware of, e.g., colleague relationships, communication skills, speaking tongue attitude, and working report result, etc. However, online working become less complicated, communicating only using texts and even having Google meetings will mainly discuss the job topics. I was putting precise time on work missions, reducing the extra chit-chat time. This working style allows me to develop a concentrated atmosphere. Improve my practical and working skills a lot.

During the internship, the most opportunity to interact and corporate is my leader Tian and my colleague, Yu. In the beginning, Leader Tian suggested and gave me many directions on completing the tasks. I felt thankful and having the chance to solve the difficulties and find my weaknesses to improve them. Simultaneously, leader Tian has a great attitude in guiding me, never blaming to correcting me. Tian motivates me to put 100% effort into completing the tasks. For instance, design the posts. Tian will offer a step by steps advice to me. Then, at the end of the meeting will have a quiet summary to recap the concept for Yu and me.

Also, my colleague Yu. He is very professional, willing to provide help, and gentlemanly when communicating with me. His attitude at work is positive and effective. He usually supplies any opinion for me and leads and reminds me to finish the task. With his help, reaching our leader's expectations will be easier. Overall, during this internship, I am honored to work with such a lovely and great leader Tian and my colleague Yu.

Yu Wang’s sharing

Hi all, my name’s Yu, and you might be wondering how I ended up working at an Anthropological association in Southern Africa. I’m ethnically Chinese but grew up in Spain, now I am in university in Hong Kong. I am in my second year majoring in business, which at first I thought did not correlate with anthropology; the truth is, money makes the world go around. Any association needs funding, so in that sense, it was intriguing to see how getting funding worked for an association that doesn’t directly sell a product. The reality is that it is quite difficult since the “customer” segment is very niche, the number of anthropologists in Southern Africa is quite limited.

My internship at ASnA has been eventful. Our first meeting with the council happened two weeks before the commencement of the internship but it was a new experience to connect with new faces half way across the world. Everyone was very welcoming and accommodating even though we were limited to the online platform. We learned about African culture and how no matter the rush it is always important to greet and ask about each other’s days’. On the official commencement date we were given our first tasks to make social media posts. For people my age it is second nature to scroll social media but I never stopped to think how people made the actual posts. With the help of my fellow intern we made welcome posts, member introduction posts as well as some registration questionnaires for new members. We were able to check in and ask questions through the daily meetings in the afternoon to stay on track. The format is online which allows a very flexible schedule, but daily meetings helps us “feel” the work environment since we are not physically present in South Africa. The workload has not been too heavy, we are given time to prepare the projects and have several rounds to revise the finished products. Of course, the experience will not truly be the same as if everything was done physically, but I feel that it still feels like we are working for an organization.

One afternoon we had setup a meeting with the social media expert at ASnA, Gabby, and we were slightly surprised she had not joined at 6. Our advisor tried reaching out several times and we understood she had issues joining the call. All of a sudden, Tian gets a phone call from gabby and it seemed she couldn’t fix the issue, so we ended up having the meeting through google meets and communicated to gabby through Tian who had her on the phone. This is not only because of the online mode of the internship but also because of the African culture Tian described to us. People are laid back and very chill, they might be late to meetings but they will not miss them, and many times at the meeting time you have to reach out to other members to find out if the medium changed to zoom or WhatsApp.

The format of the internship being online is also very unique. Pre-covid even though the world was already digitalized, majority of activities were still conducted in person. It is only during covid when people had no choice that we found ways to accomplish things online. The meeting rooms turned to zoom, the work desk became the one at home and the chitchat with coworkers turned to WhatsApp chats. In this sense, our experience is very unique since we are connected to the council members only through a computer, we have not met them in “real life”. Although we have not met them it’s as if we know them since we communicate frequently in the group chats and on video-call, so it is similar to real-life interaction. For me this internship being online was a blessing since this summer I had to move around for various family-related events such as graduations. We have a set of tasks and meet once a day but apart from that I can structure my day however I’d like. Of course there are deadlines and meetings but these are all on documents visible to everyone so tasks still get completed on a timely manner. Of course, the work environment would be different if we were physically present as it would be more time we could dedicate to the tasks as well as the whole atmosphere but doing everything online is basically the same.

To add on, when meeting with ASnA’s treasurer, who is an associate professor at the University of Johannesburg, we expected a very monotone, and strictly professional discussion. We were surprised at how welcoming and “normal” it felt, just like having a conversation with a friend. Mid-way through the interview a student came in to submit some papers but then the meeting continued as usual. This was all new and possible due to the online format of the internship.

All in all, this experience is quite unique since previously all internships were in person. After covid made everyone depend on online platforms, we have now found a way to do more things online.