This past week in Berlin has honestly been incredible. I have been on my feet non stop, exploring so much of the city and seeing what Berlin has to offer. Today i had the pleasure on starting one of my part time internships at an organization called Tip:Tap. At first i was very nervous because my commute to the office was going to be an hour and it was daunting cause i have never travelled that far for work before. Also because i just arrived in Berlin and although i have used the transportation alot during that week this was my second time using it by myself. However, a couple days before my internship started my supervisor was very kind and reached out and asked me where i was staying so that she could accompany me along my journey to the office and show me around. This made me feel alot more confident and she told me which transportation to take to the office and also gave me some information on the neighborhood in which the office is located. My commute consisted of taking the train for around 30 minutes and then taking a 12 minute bus which was right outside the train station. The office is located in a place called Atelier gardens. Honestly from the from it looks like a gigantic warehouse however, once you walk through the gates you see a beautiful space where people can be seen working, lounging, and eating. My supervisor told me that this space used to be a movie set but they transformed into into office space where many NGO’s rent out office space and work. There was also a canteen, a little chicken coop, and a big open space with tables set out and chairs for people to relax in.
The NGO which i am interning at is called Tip: Tap and it works in the environmental sustainability sector. Their main focus is trying to promote consuming more tap water rather than consuming water from plastic bottles because that is more harmful to the environment. Also it helps to reduce plastic waste and carbon emissions. They have several public education, policy advocacy, infrastructure development initiatives. Their team consists of 20 members who are all across different parts of Germany that work to promote more sustainable water use. From my first day in the office and from talking with my supervisor it seems that there are numerous skills and strengths which are necessary to be successful in this industry. One of the skills is being creative. You need to think of creative ways in which you can advocate people to move from plastic water bottles to drinking tap water. There are also so many projects which they have done and you need some creativity to spearhead these projects and make sure that the projects themselves are successful and make a change. Another strength which you need is communication. In this sustainability sector more often than not you will be talking with government officials and leaders who you are trying to convince to help reach your goal. So you need to be able to communicate with not only them but also people who are not very well versed in what environmental sustainability is. Some competencies which are necessary to be successful in the industry which i work in which may be unique to my host country is understanding EU laws and directives which pertain to environmental sustainability You need to understand how the EU works and what goals they set for all member states regarding sustainability. You also need to have some knowledge about German laws regarding environmental sustainability and how Germany as a country tries to be more sustainable. By looking at active measures to achieve sustainability in Germany this will allow you to understand which areas in which Germany could work a little bit more on. One of my tasks in this internship is helping my supervisor write a research paper on how public water fountains could be made more available and compare how Germany implemented EU directives to other EU countries. And for that you need to know some background information about the EU and german government. Another competency which i believe you need to succeed in this specific host country is some German language skills. I dont speak German. However, i have noticed that much of the documents and websites are in German so i believe that knowing the language would really help you out in this sector
