Online internship programs and how NOT to exploit people

Between 2014-2018, I was the founder and the lead coordinator of the Online Global Internship Program (unpaid) offered by Butterfly Dreamer Network for several editions. At that time, there were not that many opportunities for youngsters to do an online internship. 

I was a student myself and I knew how hard it was to have the possibility to complete an internship while studying, as the majority of companies do not offer lots of flexibility when it comes to the working schedule, so I decided to implement something to help people. 

I was in charge of recruiting youngsters from different countries (Belgium, Romania, Moldova, Italy, Spain, Germany, Morocco, UAE, USA, the UK, Pakistan, Vietnam, Philippines, Bulgaria, Greece) and coordinating teams of 10-15 interns throughout the program/ per year. 

Nowadays, in 2020, an online internship has become the norm. As I am completely against the exploitation of youngsters in working environments, I am going to share with you some practices that I used, to give something back to the interns, as they were working for free:

• personalized letters of recommendation
• registered volunteering contracts 
• flexibility in terms of schedule: tasks with deadline in 7-8 days, not in hours or 1-2 days (as long as the intern was doing his task, WHEN he was doing it was not a concern)
• feedback for interns’ work, after the submission of every task
• sponsored trips for interns to represent the network at several meetings, events (100-300 euros/ trip)
• webinars for free for the interns with Harvard, Stanford and MIT alumni about leadership, personal development, project management (e.g. Eva Maria Olbers, Tudor Cristea Platon, Sebastian Burduja)
• the opportunity to remain volunteers in the network, or to advance in a more senior position
• the development of their own projects inside the network (e.g. social media campaigns, writing articles, organizing events) 
• virtual meeting with the CEO of the network 
• the possibility to come with their own strategies and ideas, allowing them to extend their creativity 
• allowing them to write articles on the blog of the network, as well as presenting each one of their stories to the public and the board members 
• the possibility of allowing the interns to organize a local conference in the city they are living; the network provided sponsorship for logistics (agendas, pens, maps for participants, as well as food and drinks for coffee break) - (e.g. Conference organized at the Embassy of Moldova in Brussels, Belgium for the Moldavian community in Belgium, regarding human rights, Conference organized in Constanta, Romania about youth empowerment, both in 2018)

Because, as my favorite author and motivational speaker said, people do not buy WHAT you do, they BUY why you do it.

Take care of your people. One day, you might work for them.

Note: Reference about Simon Sinek