Contributed by Tomoka Sakaguchi, Volunteer Internship student at ILSC-New Delhi
On my last day at Shine, my colleagues dressed me (centre) in Indian clothing to celebrate my time in Delhi
I have stayed for past 8 weeks in New Delhi, India. Can you guess why I chose India instead of Canada, America, Australia or New Zealand to study and use English? I have no idea exactly why, however it rang a bell when I found it was possible to study English in India.
I had studied in ILSC for two weeks with European, Saudi Arabian and Korean students. ILSC class and activities are beyond my expectation. Every class is interesting and activities which are held almost everyday after classes are enjoyable and one of the best ways to study India.
Me (third from right) and my colleagues at the workstation
After two weeks I started working at Shine Foundation as an intern. The staff at ILSC helped me greatly to find a workplace and to get an internship, for example how to write resume and do interview. The reason why I work at Shine is that I respect their projects. They have schools for children who don’t have enough education to go to normal school and a workplace for women who don’t have skill to work in a company. I usually work at the latter.
My work is making connections with Japanese companies, learning how to make handmade products and teaching English to them. Fortunately I am familiar with making goods so the work is not hard for me. However, I cannot say all work is going well because getting connections is difficult. Even as I write, I am still searching for them. Companies have high opinions about our products, greeting cards, bags, paper dolls and other hand crafts, but they have their own business sources. Therefore I could not get good answers. I thought I should have another way to support Shine, so now I am planning it! But it is secret…
Receiving my Internship Certificate from my supervisor, Naushad
Another challenge I face is that they don’t have any skill of English, so we have no way to communicate. All of us are teachers and students! They teach me Hindi, and I teach them English. They didn’t try to speak English at first because of lack of confidence, but now they always use English to talk with me! I keep waiting until they use the correct English, and I make them repeat full sentences after me. When they teach me Hindi I teach the English word too. I am lucky girl because I have worked at shine which is such a nice place!
I cannot say my life in India is complete without Shine!
