From the first day itself, I was thrown into the deep end of the water at my internship at Transparency Maldives, and from that day till the end of my internship, there wasn’t a single day where I had no work to do. Working at TM was my first time actually experiencing adulthood and what a real work place requires me to do. I had no idea what to expect but in the end I can say that it was one of the best experiences yet.

I was working mostly under the Climate Integrity Project as a Climate Governance Research Intern. Under this project I drafted stakeholder profiles, letters to institutions, analysed reports and even got the chance to participate in a festival as part of the TM team – which was a day well spent! I even got the chance to attend an actual meeting with one of the stakeholder institutions, where I got to see the work being done by the project.

There were also many small things I learnt at work, which may not be significant to some people but it was to me, one such thing is making phone calls to institutions. I had to call several places which was really intimidating, but I pushed through all thanks to TM! Some other things include my first ever fax, which happened to go through 3 times – just making sure it was delivered I would say, totally not by mistake. My Dhivehi typing skills were put to the test and I also learnt new excel tricks that would definitely come in handy.

What made my experience at TM so wonderful was the team there, everyone was so welcoming. I got to meet so many wonderful people, and made really good friends. A very special thank you goes to Sha and Ula for guiding me and making this experience worthwhile.

From all the interns lunch habits to the word searches (which we hope you took to the new office) thank you TM team for this experience, I could not have asked for a better internship. For anyone that wants a unique work experience I would highly recommend TM as it is something that you definitely will not regret!

By Faiha Fayz