EN 
NL 
My name is Anique and I have been doing an internship at FMS since February where I hold the position of 'research & advocacy'. I completed my bachelor's degree in General Social Sciences and recently graduated as MSc. in Political Science: Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict and Development. Besides my studies, I put many hours into volunteer work, including at Edukans. I thought my interest in development work, politics and policy could be very well fulfilled in an internship at the FMS, so I applied. Would you also like to do an internship at the FMS? Then check all vacancies here!
What does a typical day at the FMS look like for you?
There are two projects I work on most often, namely the partnership ''Building Change' and the research project 'Climate Justice: African Perspectives'. With the Building Change team, we are working on a campaign to put policy coherence for development on the map in the Netherlands. Every day I monitor politics and see what current developments are on various sustainable issues. I also assist in lobbying on policy coherence. Here, you can think of writing an opinion piece aimed at putting important issues on the political agenda in order to bring about political action. For Building Change, I also focus on thematic research on climate.
In the second project, the research project 'Climate Justice: African Perspectives', we are still fairly much in the early stages. Currently, I am helping to set up the research, delineate the topic, draw up research questions and organise an expert meeting to gain many insights. The topic I am mainly focusing on is climate finance. Besides these projects, the content of my internship is very flexible. For example, I help prepare the news flash, I have worked with a colleague Kirsten van den Hul interviewed and I participated in the FMS liveblog 'Corona in Africa'.
What did you learn that you will take away for your future job?
Last period has obviously been very crazy because of all the developments around corona and I worked from home for most of my internship. I learned to be creative and flexible, something I will take with me to my future job. Because of the corona virus, some things went differently than expected and it was up to me to be creative and flexible in dealing with this to come up with a suitable solution. And of course, like many others, I became very good at online meetings ;).
What did you like most/what did you remember most?
What I like (and liked) most is that I am given a lot of responsibility and that my own ideas are very welcome. I remember, for example, being allowed to go straight to a meeting of the Tax Justice Network on my own, a subject I hardly knew anything about at the time. I am given the freedom to write articles and opinion pieces on topics I find interesting and there are always opportunities to sign myself up for events or webinars I would like to attend. Your internship supervisors will try to take your interests into account as much as possible and thus tailor your internship accordingly. That sounds like music to your ears, doesn't it? So sign up!
