My Experience as an International Youth Internship Programme Junior Professional Consultant.

By Tasha Carruthers

Disclaimer: The views are those of the author's alone and do not represent the views of UNA-Canada.

Image 1: JPC Tasha Carruthers

My name is Tasha Carruthers. I am a JPC (Junior Professional Consultant) working remotely with IOM (International Organization for Migration) headquarters in Geneva Switzerland from Vancouver, Canada. I found out about the International Youth Internship Programme (IYIP) with UNA-Canada through LinkedIn during my post-graduation job search. I was elated to have been selected for this opportunity having studied international public policy at university. I have appreciated getting to work in an international setting (albeit from home) and working on multilateral problem-solving. Every day, we engage in real work, big picture problems and I am honored to be in the presence of those working towards their solutions.

Image 2: Tasha Carruthers working remotely

I work primarily in an internal, systems/organizational capacity and have had two main projects, as well as other ad-hoc tasks. The first main project I was assigned examined internal communication between the HQ and regional offices and the second was research mapping in the emerging area of social protection. For the internal communication project, IOM has recently implemented a summary and tagging system to improve communication between the regional offices and headquarters. I was assigned to record feedback from users of the reporting system to help decision-makers prioritize and improve the reporting system. The outcome of this project included more two-way communication and legend with criteria for effective tagging and organizing the information into usable hierarchies. My second main project has been looking at locating, cataloging, and mapping previous research on social protection. LMI, the division focusing on Labour Mobility and Social Inclusion (LMI) is interested in ensuring social protection for migrant workers. These are often the most vulnerable to being missed by existing social safety nets. The ideological outcomes of this work are to encourage high-inflow and high-outflow countries to establish multilateral agreements where workers' benefits can be transferred between countries.

Nearing the end of this experience, I am grateful for the opportunity and the insights I have gained working for such an organization. I deeply admire all the people I have met for their high-level and important work.