You are correct. There is, indeed, a difference between a “volunteer” who is expected to work just two days a week and the internships that expect people to work full time. But there is also a difference between someone who puts in a couple of hours at the weekend and someone who is expected to put in two days a week and to “manage their own projects over the 3 month period” and whose role “will involve supporting staff across the department from presenter to manager level as well as working with other At-Bristol departments”.

If it is just two-days a week, and the work really is important enough to warrant such a claim of responsibility, then it seems perfectly reasonable to suggest paying the minimum wage.

And where is there any mention of training?

The essential point remains that even with this internship – perhaps they should use a different label – poorer students might find it hard to put aside two days a week for several months. (Aren’t there rules about the “unemployed” being available to drop everything and take paid work?) And the organisation seems to get far more than the tenuous benefits that, in its ads at least, it offers in return.

Throwing around phrases like “out to make a quick buck” may make you feel good, but it may surprise you, that some of the egregious “media organisations, publishing houses, law firms  and other companies” that you rightly take a pop at are less well off than many a charity. So that particular accusation carries little weight. In any case, don't we expect the charitable sector to be a little more, er, charitable in its operations?

MK

Good on them, those media organisations, publishing houses, law firms and other companies looking to take advantage of young people wanting a leg-up on the career ladder to make a larger profit margin are out of order are long over-due for a kick in the rump.

However, if you're trying to say that the discussions surrounding At-Bristol are somehow linked to this then, I refer you to my response in that discussion. In summary, I disagree, At-Bristol aren't out to make a quick buck, they have a great volunteering programme and it's a different ball game completely. I think clearly the amount of work this girl was given, and it's nature, is not fitting of work of a volunteer, and any organisation with volunteers (as the At-Bristol internship actually is and made clear, it's a voluntary role, no money has ever ever ever ever been promised) probably have (At-Bristol definitely has) a very clear aim in relation to volunteers, the sorts of work they should do, how much, etc, etc. Just to repeat what I've said a couple times now, the internship I am doing in At-Bristol has given me amazing experience, great training and development, it's a massive benefit for me to have the opportunity to volunteer there, and the people I'm working with have been amazing and I've not felt taken advantage of one iota.

And they've not asked me once to respond to any of this by the way. In as much it's in my personality to talk loudly and openly about things I love and feel passionate about (usually science it has to be said), I've had such a great experience with At-Bristol that I just feel like I have to put my perspective (that of a volunteer) forward.

This is a great debate to have in relation to those instances where young people are being taken advantage of and ensure that that doens't happen, and I totally respect list members' point of views in regards to that issue, but it's a little unfair I think to surround this around At-Bristol, and the great opportunities they're offering people.

Thanks,

Michaela.