I will always look back at the time I spent in Cape Town as one of the most eye-opening and exciting experiences I have had to date. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect at first but my internship in introduced me to a sector and concepts I’m not sure I would have been exposed to anywhere else. Over the course of three months I worked with an organisation that mentored and incubated social enterprises. In short, I worked with budding entrepreneurs who ran businesses with the aim of making profit but also having a positive social impact.

From day one, I hit the ground running and was tasked with deliverables on a number of projects. One day I would help an entrepreneur write a business plan, another I would be developing a curriculum on social entrepreneurship and the day after I would be teaching modules that I helped write. I have a background in finance but I often found myself needing to be flexible and prepared to work on whatever projects needed the attention at the time, and I often had a major say in what direction we took certain projects. Sometimes it was overwhelming, but being out of my comfort zone and experiencing something new is what made the entire experience all the more worthwhile. My eyes were opened to a new way of tackling poverty reduction and social enterprise is a field I will be interested in and hopefully be involved in for a long time.

Eimear was patient and thorough in helping me find the right internship and I can’t thank her enough for that. Aside from organising the internship, Connect-123 helped with a number of things making it easy for me to enjoy everything that Cape Town had to offer. Getting to know fellow interns and volunteers was probably the highlight of my stay – in my few months in South Africa I made a number of friends and built a network of like-minded people who I am sure I will cross paths with in the future, both professionally and socially. I am sure I will look back on this experience with not only a sense of achievement, but with memories of all the great people I met and had a chance to work with.

My time in South Africa was inspiring as I worked government bodies, an advocacy NGO as well as helped run a workshop in an informal settlement while I was there. Despite my short period with Connect-123, they were extremely helpful in all matters and helped make my experience in Cape Town as fulfilling and rewarding as possible. The city is beautiful, the people welcoming and warm and there is so much to do!

My favourite part of my time in South Africa was the warmth with which the people welcomed me and the multitude of jazz clubs and quirky little restaurants speckled around the city. It is a wonderful place to do an internship and I would highly recommend it.

The child life program at Connect-123 has recently expanded out of the hospital and into the community by offering a school re-entry program to a 7 year old girl.

“Britney” was admitted to the burn unit at Red Cross Children’s Hospital after sustaining a significant flame injury to her abdomen, lower arms, and upper legs from match play. Since Britney was the second child in her school to sustain an injury from matches, Child Life Program director, Danielle recognized a need for fire prevention and safety.

Despite the fact that this was the first of its kind for Britney’s school, the staff  were incredibly receptive and willing to accommodate Danielle’s presentation which would coincide with Britney’s first day back. After nearly two months of hospitalisation and recovery, the child life team received word that Britney would be returning to school and prepared for the long and rainy drive to a town just outside of Hermanus. Upon arrival, the team was warmly welcomed by the school staff and students. A PowerPoint presentation was shown to 90 first, second and third graders showing photos of the hospital wards, rooms, and staff.

The aim of this program, and most school re-entry programs, is to educate both staff and students on the hospitalisation process. The idea is that, provided with this knowledge, the staff and students will have a firm understanding of the child’s injury or illness thus alleviating the child from an influx of questions and preventing disaffection because of their differences.

The second half of the presentation focused on fire safety. The team discussed with the children items found in a typical home that, while useful, can be harmful and should be used by adults only (i.e. matches!). The children were also instructed on what to do in case of a fire. Stop, drop and roll, fire escape routes and information on who firefighters are and what they do was also included in this portion of the presentation. Not only were the children well behaved and respectful, they asked some insightful questions. After being instructed to (in the event of a fire) leave the house immediately taking nothing with you, and phoning for the fire department, one girl asked, “How do you call the fire department if you left your cell phone inside?!” A demonstration of technology’s influence on children…