First impression of my internship at WDC

I started my internship at the “Whale and Dolphin Conservation” (WDC) office in Germany on Tuesday, 06/04/2021. Due to the current situation with the Covid Virus, I am working from my Apartment and once a week I have the opportunity to go to the office and work alongside one other employee. Due to the measures, we are only allowed with one to two people in the office, due to a lack of space.

On Tuesday morning I had an introductory Meeting in which I was explained the various programs that WDC works with and where I can find more information on these. For the rest of the day I had some time to become more familiar with said programs and get a better understanding of what they currently work on. Additionally, a meeting was held with the offices from the UK and the US where topics, such as how the campaigns are progressing and how to report on for example movies and what the particular stance on that is, were discussed. The movies included “Seaspiracy” and the upcoming “Secret of the Whales”.

Wednesday I met the former Intern at the office and we went through everything there is to know regarding the office and what can be found in which place. Moreover, we prepared the new adoption packs which came in over easter.

More information can be found on the German site https://de.whales.org/spenden-und-helfen/patenschaft/

Or on the UK site https://uk.whales.org/support/adopt/

Since there are different types of adoption where one can adopt either a humpback whale, dolphin, or orca, as well are there are adult and junior option, one receives different types of materials related to the specific animal chosen.

As I was also able to do some more research on these animals during the later day, I became more invested in how incredible and important they are to humans as well as the earth itself.

During the third day, I wrote a Blog entry about myself as the new intern for the organization. In this Blog I described why I am doing this particular internship, why I am interested in supporting the welfare of whales and dolphins, and what my expectations are from the internship itself. Since I will be with the company for 5 months, I am sure that I will be able to learn many new things, including communication within a Team that is independently working on different tasks that all contribute to the same cause, communicate with society and which channels are the most efficient and why the ones used were chosen. I am also looking forward to working in a team where everyone is excited and engaged in the topic.

On the last work day of the week I had a meeting to get an introduction into the public relations/press sector. It was quite informative and nice to see what the individual employees are responsible for and what exactly they are working on. I also appreciate their willingness to give me such detailed introductions to their jobs.

Overall, although I did not have too many tasks during the first week, I am happy with the experiences I was able to gather so far and I look forward to the following weeks/months of the internship.