Six Eldest Residents Prepare for Summer Internships

Rotha heading out to pursue his interest in

Computer Technology for a two month

work internship.

  Embracing opportunity is a key value and main focus of our efforts at AP. The Cambodian public school closes from August 1st to October 1st, and we viewed this time as a great opportunity for some of our residents to gain valuable work experience through volunteer internship placements.

  Our six eldest residents have been participating in a specially tailored in-house Career Counseling program for the past several months and now have the opportunity to put what they've learned to the test. The program began with encouraging each of these older residents to embrace their natural talents and skills, and to think about how they could evolve these into their career interests. Through this process, each participant identified a career or job in which they expressed strong interest. The Career Counseling program assisted in fostering their unique passions and different areas of interest, including computer technology, the medical field, creative arts, architecture and hairdressing. In June, the eldest residents began searching for internship placements based on their particular career interest. As they were undertaking a job search for the first time, we guided them through this process.

  To assist the participants, a ‘Job Seeking Strategy’ workshop was conducted by the Attitude Centre for Education (a Phnom Penh-based local NGO) which focused on several basic skills necessary to enter the Cambodian job market: how to write and build a CV, interview skills, and how to use local Cambodian resources to search for jobs and internship placements. The AP teenagers very much enjoyed the course, and are utilizing their new skills daily in their efforts to land a summer internship. In addition, we have had many preparation sessions, one-on-one meetings, and provided them with strategic timelines and guidelines to ease the load.

  Their progress to date has been impressive. These six eldest residents have overcome their initial fears and have made great headway towards landing internships of their liking. We will continue to follow their progress and provide updates of their work and accomplishments during their two month internship period.