As a background, I am completing a project placement with Amnesty International Australia and will be providing a monitoring, evaluation and reporting project based on a previous education project between Amnesty and Holmesglen Tafe. My role in this evaluation is ultimately determining whether Amnesty’s input is worth the output that they get from the project, and providing recommendations in the form of a course syllabus to potentially reach these goals in Semester 1, 2018.
One of the first lessons I have learnt so far is the importance of clarity and communication with the industry partner, and preferably in a written form like email!
As I already intern at Amnesty, I have a good relationship with my supervisor, so a lot of the discussions surrounding my project have been verbal, and often one idea that leads to another idea. Sitting down to actually write my research proposal and WIL agreement proved to be more difficult than necessary because there were still multiple aspects I hadn’t clarified with my industry partner (or Robbie for that matter), and I didn’t have much in the way of a paper trail to refer to.
As a result, I have realized how important it is to have constant communication and clarity, because as a result I have left doing some further research on Amnesty and human rights education until later than I would have liked in the semester. This research would have helped me with questions I had asked, and is giving me a great foundation to work on my project in regard to Amnesty’s standards.
I have now been utilizing my Amnesty email address, and am using that (after verbal conversations) to have a written copy of what was discussed.
Secondly, a significant issue I have realized is that TAFEs are indeed missing out on partnerships with NGOs.
This isn’t just in the education-partnership aspect, but there is a lack of NGO presence as a whole in TAFEs. This came as a big surprise to me, because Amnesty has a large presence in high schools, universities and in community groups, and I had always assumed if Amnesty wasn’t having a presence in TAFE, that there were other organisations that were there. This means that students are missing out on key ways to volunteer, network, expand their interests, and conduct activism in their community.
This has led my research to exploring WHAT it is about the TAFE community that makes it different to other educational institutions, and make it harder for NGOs to establish a presence there. I have learnt that NGOs have attempted to establish a presence across Australia and have not been met with much luck. This is an important realization as it is starting (I hope) to shape my question for my RRR.
Essentially, this issue will be applied in the sense that I will continue to explore the questions of why and how.