In the summer, I had initially planned to fly down to bangalore and then to rural parts of odisha to intern at an NGO named Anthill Creations which worked towards building sustainable playground in rural communities. My plans were interrupted by the Pandemic but I was very keen on working with Anthill, so I approached them about possibly interning with them remotely. My proposal was very well taken and so I started my e-internship. I chose to work with Anthill because I loved my previous experience of working with the Toybank Foundation which is also an organization which dealt with young children from low-income communities.
LO1:Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
I was given a week to coordinate with the various departments at anthill like Business Development(BD), Operations, Design and Content development departments to understand what my strengths and interests were. I understood content writing and content management was a strength so I chose to take it up alongside business development, an area I was newly exposed to.
LO2:Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken developing new skills
Working remotely with an organization which is always boots on the ground proved to be more challenging than I thought. I was very new to how an organization works and faced difficulties in settling into Anthill’s protocols and their daily Stand-Up Meetings. As a result of working with Anthill, I learnt how an organization functions and communicates and I certainly will be able to apply my learnings to my future endeavours.
L03:initiate and plan a CAS experience
I had approached Anthill for my internship of my own conviction and chose to continue my internship even after the huge curveball, COVID 19.
LO4:commitment to and perseverance
Working remotely is a tad bit difficult as there definitely is a disconnect amongst the people who work with you. I faced lots of problems understanding Anthill’s operations but had to stay onto it to eventually get better at it. I committed my time to Anthill throughout my summer and spent over one month working with them.
LO5:Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively
Anthill was the first time I was working with people I had never known and in this situation never even met. It turned out to be a struggle to connect with a variety of people who hailed from all corners of India and even worked remotely from across the country. Over time, I was assigned a mentor and a team: The content development team. We had various team meetings wherein we discussed the editing and review processes and various other things. Through working with the team I learnt many new things such as Blogging strategies, Listicles and in-text SEO Hyperlinking
LO7:Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
I was privileged to be able to write for the organization and thus, what I wrote represented the Organization in addition to myself. This led me to consider my writing and to look into my referencing so I don’t end up affecting the start up in a negative way. This led me to recognize and consider how my actions and ethics would be responsible for various things.
Overall, My experience of working with Anthill was a really great one. Throughout my journey of little over a month, I experienced many ups and downs, learnt many things, won a lot of saturday quizzes. Anthill even though did not teach me about any of my subjects, It taught me organizational dynamics and collaboration skills at the bare minimum.
Linkedin Post by the CEO featuring me
Official Offer Letter
The Website where my article was posted