Community Resilience Internship

The British Red Cross is a volunteer-led humanitarian organisation that helps people in crisis, whoever and wherever they are. We enable vulnerable people at home and overseas to prepare for and respond to emergencies in their own communities. And when the crisis is over, we help people recover and move on with their lives.

About our internship scheme

Interns at the British Red Cross are highly valued for the skills and energy they bring. We aim to provide our interns with an insight into the daily workings of the world’s largest humanitarian organisation. The successful candidate will have access to relevant in-house training and development opportunities during their placement. There may be some ad hoc opportunities to get involved in other areas of activity.

Your role as an intern will help make a great contribution to the work of the British Red Cross. You will take responsibility for achieving specific objectives that are agreed with you within one of the various departments across the UK. You will have a real responsibility and place in the department, bringing some of your skills and experience to the role; you will also have the chance to develop workplace skills.

About this role

Are you passionate about making a difference within communities? If you want to gain experience in community resilience development and participatory mapping, this role could be for you.

Your role will be to support the Community Resilience Project Team in London. Your main project will be developed within the Community Resilience project team with the Crisis Response Team and the London Emergency Response and Independent Living Directorate of British Red Cross UK operations. As part of this project you will be able to build connections with other teams within the Red Cross and receive ad hoc training, support, and mentoring.

This aim of the Community Resilience project is to harness the power of kindness and empower communities to not only help each other but also become a supportive resource to the public services in emergency environments. This pilot programme is a partnership between British Red Cross and AVIVA and will be rolled out from October 2020 across 6 London boroughs after an initial testing in Barking and Dagenham, Waltham Forest and Redbridge.

Through the project, your contribution will expand the work of British Red Cross in the field of community resilience and you will be able to gain skills in the field of community engagement, participatory mapping, co-production and evaluation. The role will offer opportunities to engage with individuals and community groups and support co-designing of bespoke training packages with them. You will get experience in developing and delivering training toolkits to community groups and design and facilitate emergency exercises aimed at improving community preparedness, response and recovery from different emergencies. Additionally, you will be involved in research activities adopting both qualitative and quantitative approaches and support the evaluation of the project using community led methodologies.

To succeed in this role, it is desirable to have some basic experience and interest in one or more of the following areas:

1. Co-production & Service Design
2. Storytelling, Communication and Marketing
3. Data Management and Project Evaluation

It is expected that activities will be mainly conducted in remote setting – working from home but if necessary meeting would take place from British Red Cross central office in Moorgate. You will have the opportunity to work from home but might be required to travel to some of the London boroughs involved in the programmes for meetings, trainings and events (with travel expenses covered).

NOTE: to be considered for this application you need to have a valid London residence address at the time of application.

Hours

This internship will last a maximum of 12 weeks, with a minimum commitment of 3 days a week each week. The volunteering hours are negotiable to balance your needs and what can be achieved in the role.

Tasks include

• Support community engagement and community organising among voluntary sector organisations, faith groups and local organisations.
• Development of co-design session bringing stakeholders and users together to generate ideas for potential solutions; identify themes; and prioritise ideas democratically.
• Support the development scalable volunteer support and training packages that can be extended beyond the pilot stage.
• Prototyping training toolkits and other tools, bringing ideas to life and rapidly testing them to find out what works and what doesn’t work.
• Develop and maintain scalable solutions that can be used for working with community groups. Starting from real human needs and actively involving stakeholders in co-creation (including corporate and institutional partners).
• Design and conduce research and evaluation activities using qualitative and quantitative approaches, participatory mapping, peer led approaches and co-production techniques.

What we are looking for

You will bring your knowledge, experience and passions to the team and will be able to develop your personal learning while supporting the Community Resilience project. Some of the skills, experience and behaviours we are looking for are:

• Passion about working with the community and voluntary sector
• Interest in working on resilience issues — for example climate change, risk reduction, health, livelihoods;
• Interest working with a diversity of stakeholders including corporate partners and communities.
• Interest in participatory approaches and engaging with statutory and voluntary agencies and local government;
• Experience of/interest in working in a diverse community-based setting;
• Experience of/ interest in working collaboratively on projects;
• Good communication skills/ interested in using social media to interact with public;
• IT literate. Experience of using email, word processing, presentation and spread sheet packages;
• interest in the humanitarian sector and has previous volunteering experiences

What we offer

• A full induction, with ongoing support and supervision throughout your placement
• Access to relevant in-house training and development opportunities, including British Red Cross intranet site and International Federation of the Red Cross Learning Resources, e-learning facility and one-to-one career sessions or career development workshops
• Valuable exposure to the work of the Red Cross in the UK and around the world
• A great opportunity to develop your existing skills and to gain new ones
• Reasonable travel and lunch expenses paid
• Being a volunteer for the British Red Cross means that you can proudly say you are part of the world’s largest humanitarian organisation, and one of our 13 million volunteers across the world.

Additional information

Desirable:

• Basic experience/interested in using human-centred design approaches.
• Interest/experience in community evaluation approaches.
• Understanding of the socio-economic and cultural context of the London most socio-economically vulnerable Boroughs where the project is focused or similar urban areas.
• Interested in building user centred services and projects.
• Interested in building work experience in the resilience sector.

Young People and this role

Our internship opportunities are open to people at different stages of their career, aged 15 or above. Whether your student, a recent graduate or someone with more experience looking for a career change, we would be happy to hear from you.

We value the energy and enthusiasm that young people bring to this role. Anyone can volunteer with the Red Cross from the age of 15. An individual risk assessment, parental consent and safeguarding considerations will be required for those aged 15 – 17. The nature of the activities specific to your intern opportunity may mean that you need to be 18 years or older.

Diversity

We welcome applications from people of different backgrounds, experience and circumstances. We seek to ensure that our organisation and our services are relevant and accessible to all, with equality, diversity and fairness at the core of what we do. We invite applications from individuals regardless of their gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or political belief and are committed to promoting fair participation and equality of opportunity for all of our applicants.

The British Red Cross is committed to being inclusive, with a diverse workforce. We encourage applications from people from the widest possible diversity of backgrounds, cultures and experiences – including disabled and ethnic minority candidates. We value fresh perspectives and insights gained by involving and welcoming people from the widest possible diversity of background, culture and experience. This is to contribute to the breadth of experience we need to respond to people in crisis.