Annual Report 2021/Story: Adding interns into the mix

Enabling

2021

In this Story we are focusing on how we have started to develop a new internship program, that creates values and opportunities both for the organization and for the interns.

Earlier years we have had interns coming from different sources and working with different tasks. One who did outreach before Wiki Loves Monuments and clean-up of images after, one who did a user survey, some who did proofreading and translations of reports and documents. What we did not have was a common thread running through what interns we accepted and tasks we gave them.

Without a clear structure and plan we had to start over with every intern, and could not build on previous experiences and outcome. Even though most of our interns added value, we had to work hard to get that extra out of it.

Looking back at it, and looking forward to the planned expansion of our organization and the tasks coming ahead, we are in a good position to add structure to our work with interns to get a better outcome with less input. We are making sure checklists are up to date and who is responsible for ticking off the boxes, we are adding both small recurring tasks and bigger one off tasks suitable for interns to work with to our list.

We are also looking into ways to work with educational institutions where internship is part of the education. That will both ensure we have a steady supply of interns in the right field and allow for a more diverse group of interns as they can use student loans and not carry their expenses themselves.

During 2021 the structures for the internship program were put in place and we expect to start promoting this new opportunity a number of times per year.