Faith Osifo and Rebecca Tetteh were based within the careers and employability team, and tasked with investigating how to communicate to students the value of developing their employability skills. Faith said: “I developed my ability to give constructive feedback on different ideas and projects, as well as think of new ways to do things and improve them, for example adding some new sections into the Employability Workbook for students, to make it more personal to each student. This has all been a massive confidence booster for me, and it also helped me to understand what type of working environment would suit me best.”
Faith was also able to clarify her future ambition to create a social mobility organisation – she said: “learning about the mentoring programmes at the Ογ½ΆΦ±²₯ really reaffirmed for me that I am passionate about helping people to develop and progress regardless of their background.”
Diane Danquah, working in the Learning and Teaching Hub, created a podcast of the interns’ experiences during their time at Brighton, and she also produced a guidance video for staff on how to use Canva software. She said: “I believe the learning experience of an internship is priceless. It can expose you to new things, as even though you pick a sector, you don’t know exactly where you will end up working. This internship showed me different opportunities available in higher education which I had not considered.”
The 10K Black Interns programme seeks to offer 2,000 internships each year for five consecutive years, each lasting for a minimum of six weeks. The programme has partnered with over 600 organisations from over 25 different sectors to deliver paid work experience for students of black heritage, with internships lasting a minimum of six weeks.
10,000 Black Interns was founded in response to global events and a stark underrepresentation of Black talent within the Investment Management industry. The pilot project initially placed 100 Black students and graduates in internship positions and was so successful that the 10K Black Interns programme was launched in 2022.
Aderonke Ademola, Gabriel Dedji, Rebecca Tetteh, Faith Osifo and Dianne Danquah joined staff at Brighton for 6-weeks in July and August, working across the Marketing and Communications, Careers and Employability and Learning and Teaching teams.
Clare Dawson, Head of Employability at the university of Brighton said: “The experience was very rewarding for the interns and the host teams, and I hope that next year we can take a further cohort of interns from the programme.”
Applications are still open for the 2023 10,000 Black Interns programme, the deadline for applicants is 13 November 2022.