It’s like an organisation campaigning to highlight the effects of living in poverty paying their workers £10 a day…it’s a free ride, when you’ve already paid…
Thanks to the reader who brought this cracker to our attention, RESTLESS DEVELOPMENT, WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?
I just wanted to point out that Restless Development want to hire an intern for their ‘Live Below the Line’ campaign which challenges people to live on £1 a day. They will pay this intern only £10 a day for lunch and travel expenses ironically… Someone needs to tell Restless Development that the ‘line’ is relative.
So…I am that intern.
Money aside, this is by far the most useful and educational internship I’ve ever done (there have been some seriously bad ones).
From a financial point of view, Restless Development couldn’t afford to pay me. Last year they made £37,000 from Live Below the Line, meaning that if I was paid the same as a full-time employee for the whole of my sixth-month internship, I would take between a third and half of this money. Similarly, if I wasn’t here, they/we (probably) wouldn’t be able to promote Live Below the Line in the way that we do.
I am not trying to justify not paying interns. But I do think that you can’t consider internships at charities in the same was as you do internships at profit-making companies.
Before you assume that I’m living off my parents, I’m not. I run my own small business after work and at weekends, and have savings that I will probably have to use some of towards the end of my time at Restless Development. I want to work in international development and am under no illusions about how well it will be paid.
I think Restless Development do great work – I wouldn’t give my time to them otherwise. I think it’s very easy to be scathing about some quite innovative campaigns and the hard work that goes into them. I’m proud of the work I’ve done for Live Below the Line and for Restless Development, and I’ve learnt a huge amount doing it.
Hello! Thanks for your reply, it’s good to hear your internship was a beneficial experience and I’m glad you see the campaign as being successful and worthwhile. We want to provoke debate and question assumptions – and sometimes our tone is provocative, sorry if it sounded glib.
One point I would make – a few years ago I certainly wasn’t as clear headed as you – when I did an internship for a company whose work that for the most part I didn’t respect (badly planned rather than badly intentioned) I didn’t quit immediately -that’s partly why we set up the blog, just to get interns to be more critical about what they are learning and what they need from an experience, which I think is something you have clearly thought a lot about. You’re right charities are for the most part exempt from NMW laws – but it doesn’t mean they should be exempt from all criticism.
Do write up your experiences for the blog, we want to hear from everyone and not everyone will read this comment!
Rosy, co-founder IA