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Oxfam internship opportunity for Monash students

16 September 2009

Three of the 14 new Oxfam interns: Arts/Law student Helen Fabinyi, Health Science/Social Work student Sarai Dee, and MBBS student David Humphreys.

Monash has celebrated the first anniversary of its partnership with Oxfam Australia with the announcement of a new round of student interns.

The successful candidates were announced at Caulfield campus this week as part of Educate09.

They will undertake volunteer work in Oxfam's human rights and HIV/AIDS campaigns in South Africa from January to February 2010.

The students come from a wide range of faculties including Arts, Science, Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Law, and Business and Economics.

Medicine student David Humphreys said he was excited to have been selected.

"This internship provides the opportunity for students to transcend the boundaries of the classroom and to see what it's like to work at a grass roots, community level and hopefully enact social change," he said.

"For me personally, this is an opportunity to pursue my interest in public and global health and to see what can be done in not just a medical, but a social sense, to help people affected by HIV/AIDS."

Monash partnered with Oxfam Australia last year to create new collaboration opportunities in everything from staff exchanges to procurement policies, to voluntary and pro-bono work opportunities for students.

The formal partnership with Oxfam was the first major step in a strategy for the University to work more closely with key Australian and international non-government organisations.

The first group of seven Oxfam interns, including two students from Monash South Africa, completed their program in January this year, spending five weeks working in various Oxfam programs in South Africa.

Monash Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Adam Shoemaker said one of the most important things about the internship experience was that people learn beyond what they expect.

"When we're talking about transformative experience in education, and impact, this program has it in absolutely every respect," Professor Shoemaker said.

The celebrations also included a keynote address from Oxfam Australia CEO Andrew Hewitt.

He said that in the last 12 months Monash and Oxfam had built a good, strong relationship.

"This relationship has paid off for our partner organisations in South Africa and the fact that we're growing the internship program next year is a good sign of that," he said.

"We're also seeing other ways in which Monash is working with us, from the Oxfam shop, from the industry-based learning placement and the volunteering and I hope we can look at other ways to extend this further in the future."