We have now said goodbye to our Youth Action Squad (YAS) interns after three months as part of the Netsafe team. Bhaj and Sarisha have upskilled on all things online safety and helped us to better connect to the rangatahi of Aotearoa. We’ve loved every minute that they were in the office and are really grateful for their input! Mā te wā. Read what they have to say about their experience at Netsafe.
Here’s what our interns have to say in their own words
Sadly, our three-month summer internship with Netsafe has now come to an end. This has been such an amazing opportunity and we wanted to share some of our learnings from the internship, as well as sharing what exciting things we got up to! P.S. we are still staying on board as YAS Ambassadors!
Sarisha
When starting the internship, I had little clue on what to expect and was just excited for the experience of working in a job that was different to what I have done growing up. I was excited to experience the different culture in the office and to learn as much as I could over the three months. To summarise that simply, I learnt and experienced more than what I expected but loved every moment of it.
We were able to hold a market research project with the YAS which gave the Netsafe team over 150 suggestions as to what ads young people are seeing online. This also included information about which of those ads were appealing and interesting (or the opposite) for Netsafe to implement in future young people campaigns.
Safer Internet Day 2021 was another big part of my internship journey, I had the responsibility of contacting new and existing supporters to bring them on board and seeing it successfully come together on the day made it all worth it.
I also had other awesome opportunities which included chairing a meeting, creating and presenting fun presentations, creating content for the social channels and forming a great bond with the extremely talented team I worked with.
In summary, this was such an amazing opportunity that I am so thankful to have had and what I have learnt here will be put into practice while continuing studying and beyond! Thank you Netsafe and the team <3
Bhaj
These past few months have been amazing, and I’m really going to miss working in the office. I started with knowing not much about Netsafe but now understand the enormous amount of effort that goes into keeping people safe online. It is providing support services, education resources, connecting with youth, marketing through many channels, researching, analysing data, and so much more.
The team behind this work are incredibly talented, hardworking and have inspired me so much. I’ve had so many new experiences, like working in an office, taking part in major projects like Safer Internet Day, managing social media – even being in a recording studio! These are things that will stick with me throughout my journey through life. I’m excited to see what’s coming for 2021 and hope to see some new interns too. Thank you to the Netsafe team <3 Take care!
