Internships during the pandemic at LINI

interns and community doing coral reef monitoring

In the midst of the pandemic, LINI has continued to host interns from many parts of Indonesia, with each intern staying for three months at our project sites. LINI’s internship program which started in 2016 has hosted over 40 interns from 13 universities across Indonesia, offering Indonesian fresh graduates from fisheries, marine science, aquaculture and social science backgrounds the chance to experience working on a wide range of fisheries, marine conservation, and community development programs. 

Our recent feedback survey on the internship program reported that after the program,  interns work in a variety of professions including conservation organisations, aquaculture companies,      or are self-employed running their own aquaculture farm for freshwater fish, and in the marine ornamental industry. Encouraging and delightful results from the survey are the overwhelming feedback that said interns learned a long list of soft skills during the internship. Example of these are learning to be responsible, to communicate effectively, time management, to understand about being tolerant, to understand different culture, to socialise, to listen and to develop critical thinking and to grow empathy towards others.  All of these soft skills help them to start their careers.

While the interns learned, we also continue to learn. We learn about effective coaching, developing better programs, and inspiring local communities with whom we work to also having the opportunity to benefit from our internship program.  We believe that an internship is not just about learning new hard skills, like building reef restoration or breeding fish, but also to grow passion and love towards nature and empathy to others. We think that the new situation in which meeting, travelling and socialising has been somewhat reduced, and while the pandemic is still not over yet, the internship program has become more important than ever.

We are determined to continue to offer Indonesian fresh graduates to learn with us in our Training Centre for aquaculture and marine conservation in North Bali, or at our field project sites in Banggai Island, Central Sulawesi, Selayar Island, South Sulawesi and in the Banda Islands in Maluku. For that reason, we seek more support and help from others too! If you are interested in supporting our internship program please contact us.

By Gayatri Reksodihardjo-Lilley and Eveline Kurniati