Akhona Jolingana
In 2019 I was lucky enough to have been chosen at ASSITEJ South Africa after a period of three months looking for a job. I had just recently finished my Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of the Western Cape. I applied for the position of Marketing & Communication Coordinator assistant at ASSITEJ SA. I had a background in theatre & performance and I knew when I was applying for this job that I had to deal with what I had most passion for, even though I had applied for an office-based position.
When I started the internship I was so excited, but also scared and had an open heart to learn as I was about to settle in a new environment with new responsibilities that I think I was not ready to be faced with. ASSITEJ SA afforded me an opportunity and a space to learn and make mistakes and offered me guidance to correct those mistakes and that was how I was able to grow and understand my working environment, duties and responsibilities.
This opportunity did not only give me the work experience I needed, but also an opportunity to build my confidence and also to figure out my strengths and weaknesses along the way, through the work activities that I was assigned to do. I also think this wouldn’t have been such a good experience for me if it was not for my colleagues at ASSITEJ South Africa who supported me beyond expectations and Debbie Luyt our coach whom we nagged at all times when things did not go as planned from First Rand.
I have learned more than what I was assigned to do at ASSITEJ SA, since we are a very small team and most of the time we had to help each other in all that we were doing especially when we had to organise or run festivals, workshops, programmes from marketing the events, communicating with the clients/stakeholders, organizing the event and running it.
I have also learnt more about marketing and communication of the organizational world because ASSITEJ SA afforded me many opportunities to attend training workshops, to help me figure out the way things are done in an organizational world which is different from how they are done in the corporate world.
The online course was also one of the best things which First Rand made possible for many of us, because many of the courses we chose really did make much impact on our performance at work. I gained a lot of new insights and ways of tackling the issues which I had faced, from writing long reports, business letters, formal & informal writing, manipulation of data from qualitative to quantitative data, which enhanced what I had learned in varsity.
I don’t know what the future holds, my internship is coming to an end and it’s very sad but also it is something that has to be done, and I am also very glad that another graduate will be afforded this opportunity and be guided as they have done with me and other interns.
I would like to send a big THANK YOU to First Rand (Rand Merchant Bank) for making this possible and to ASSITEJ South Africa for giving me this opportunity and the support they have given me and for the experiences they have created for me.
