Wadiam Papka: My Internship Experience with CODE so Far

On a fateful Monday evening, as I discussed with my sister on certain plans I had made for myself for summer 2016 amongst which I mentioned an interest in working in any organization to gain an experience and also experience the real world. With excitement she exclaimed, “Yes!! I know an organization you would love to work in” and with my funny facial expression I replied, “ how serious can you be? I haven’t even enjoyed my summer yet and you want me to start working? I was just joking oo!”

Little did I know she went out of her way to reach out to the organization for a placement interview and at night she sent me a message “we have a place to go on Friday at 11am, but before then make sure you read on Connected Development [CODE] and have an idea about it.” I did exactly what she said and I found myself constantly visiting the organization’s website even when I want to check up something on the Internet, I kept checking on their website as well.

As Friday came, the clock kept ticking as my heart kept panting hard. I began to panic while different thoughts were flying into my head “what if they don’t accept you? Why can’t you just say you are not interested again? Is it really necessary to gain the experience? Would you be welcomed into the organization?”

While all these thoughts were traveling in my head, I found myself in front of a sign post reading “Connected Development, Empowering Marginalized Communities”.

Then I knew the work experience was real. I shook off the fear in me, and walked in. Immediately I opened the door I saw about six people looking at me and they took their faces off while they all worked on their laptops.

Walking further, I saw a “young chap” in an Alhaji’s cap on, I was wondering ‘ Is this the owner of the organization? Or is this his friend?  All these assumptions were rectified when he introduced himself as Hamzat Lawal, the Chief Executive of CODE. He asked what I knew about CODE, and I poured all I read from the website. He cracked jokes and I laughed, it served as a piece of relief for me while I was expecting to see a man who had a straight face and does not smile after all the stories I heard from friends about their bosses at various organizations where they happen to work.  To my amazement, this man was totally different. After our conversation, he told me ‘Wadiam, welcome to CODE, let me introduce you to the team.”  Having met the team, and introduced myself, I was totally calm to have seen a little me accepted as an intern in CODE.

Two weeks later, I received an email urging me to resume on June 8, 2016 at 8am. I was quite sad as I expected to resume by 9am, but well, I obviously had to adapt.

I walked in on June 8, with my shy self, as I met everyone, they embraced me and we developed a relationship within ourselves. I would basically regard CODE not as an organization but rather a family.

Sadly, on my second day at CODE, I had an experience of a lifetime. As I sat on a chair, reading an article on my laptop, within the twinkle of an eye, I found myself on the floor. I realized I just fell down not knowing I sat down a bad chair, it was so funny and at the same time it wasn’t funny because I felt embarrassed. But then! When I remember that fall, I just sit and laugh on my own because of the way everything just occurred in seconds.

IMG_5984So far so good, working with this family, I have learnt to use the Google drive, social media as means of creating awareness to the public not only chatting and communicating with friends, I have also learnt to build up my self-confidence. Building my confidence is one of the best things I have learnt knowing my very shy part as a person. In the same vein, I have learnt how to build proper and healthy relationship with people while working as a team.

While working as an intern at CODE, I expect to teach a lot of things aside the ones I have learnt already. I would like to still understand the aspect of development strategies, making a stringent policy and how to implement as well as review such policies to enable its efficiency.

I would say on a brief note that this being my first internship experience, has been an amazing and challenging one for me as I would always want to return and work here after my school.

AboutHamzat Lawal
Hamzat Lawal is an activist and currently the Co-Founder/Chief Executive of Connected Development [CODE]. He is working to build a growing grassroots movement of citizen-led actions through Follow The Money for better service delivery in rural communities. He is also a Leader of the Not Too Young To Run Movement.

Comments (04)

  1. Doctor Ondotimi Robinson
    July 17, 2016

    I love to work for you.

    Reply
    • Amina Mohammed
      July 18, 2016

      Dear Ondotimi,
      we are honored to know that you would love to work for us,hence there is provision for either internship or volunteers. Which ever one is suitable for you please fill the form on our site. We look forward to hearing from you. Thanks and have a great day.

      Reply
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