For more than two months we have now been interns at Oxfam Novib. All of us are doing very different things, working on very different themes. The teams we work in may know what we are working on to some extent – this also differs per intern – but there are many more people working in the The Hague office. For all these colleagues who are interested in what interns do all day, a midterm event was organized in which we were asked to present ourselves and our work.
For us too, this was a nice way to get to know more colleagues and some of us even got to make use of colleagues’ knowledge for their own work. For example Melissa, who distributed a survey about use of communication and knowledge sharing in Oxfam Novib and Emil and Nina, who tested their strategic partnership game for future use.
There were two more games that could be played that day. One of them was the Tax Haven quiz from Christal, Marjorie and Yvette where I learned that the “Amstelgebouw” in Amsterdam has 2477 mail box companies (companies that only use the address to avoid taxes) in it! And then there was the Land, Water, Food 30 seconds game hosted by Eline, Joris and myself in which colleagues could win a ‘moestuintje’. Unfortunately, we had set the bar a little too high, and only 7 teams got to win a prize… Last but not least, colleagues could have a speed date with Saskia. She had prepared difficult questions which they could discuss while enjoying a nice home made “innovation star” cookie.
I had a nice three hours, seeing all these enthusiastic colleagues participating in our games and activities. Plus, it was good to see that many people did not only come by to play the games, but were actually interested in ourselves and our work too.
Writing this blog on the midterm event, I realized that some of us are already halfway through their internships. A good moment to reflect on what we have done so far and what else we would like to learn. For me, it feels as if I have only been here for a month but at the same time it could’ve been half a year as well. Only three more months to go… time flies when you are having fun!
By Marion Ebbes, Intern Inequalities in Value Chains. Read more about Marion here!
Oxfam Novib Academy 