Interning in Trampoline House: A personal, social and activist development
Ellen and Emilia are interns in Trampoline House. They say they learn a lot, both in terms of personal development and work experience, all while getting to know different people.
By Amanda Enggaard Dybdal
The soul of Trampoline House rests in a large part on its many creative and enthusiastic interns, who bring to life the everyday activities of the house. Ellen and Emilia are two of them. They are both interning in Trampoline House’s Capacity Building team since the beginning of 2019.
As Capacity Building interns, Ellen and Emilia help organizing the asylum-seeking interns in Trampoline House. “We coordinate and supervise the internships. We make sure that all the different tasks in the house that need to be done are overseen by someone and we make sure that people come in and do their job,” Ellen explains.
Emilia and Ellen in Trampoline House’s garden. Photo: Viktoria Steinhart
“Your voice is as important as any other person’s voice”
In many ways, the internships provide both Ellen and Emilia with many benefits. Not only because they get to obtain work experience in a field that is relevant to their interests, but also because they experience both personal and social skills. Through a flat hierarchy, Trampoline House strives to include everybody on equal terms: “Everyone gets to participate in the organisational and practical stuff,” Emilia says, “and your voice is as important as any other person's voice and this feels really nice to be part of.”
“It’s really nice to feel like you’re being a little bit proactive,” Ellen adds, “because there is so much right now in Denmark that pisses you off every day.” Emilia agrees: the internship “sort of empowers you in an activist kind of way.”
Close to many different people
As an intern in Trampoline House, you’ll get to spend your days with the other interns, volunteers, the staff and everyone else in the house. This provides a great insight into the workings of the house and helps Ellen and Emilia getting acquainted with many different people that they might not have met otherwise. For Emilia, interning means “that we get to know every user of the house, which is very nice because we really stay in contact with people every day. I think this is the best part of our job.”
“You are surrounded by friends all the time,” Ellen adds. “It makes it fun to come to work every day. I look forward to it when I wake up in the morning.”
Not like other internships
Just as much as Trampoline House benefits from the many enthusiastic souls of the house, the feeling is mutual for the two Capacity Building interns: “I would like to add that this is a life experience that I would recommend to anyone just because it teaches you so much; staying at Trampoline House is a nice experience and you get to learn a lot. Personal change and achievement, lessons for you and your life; it’s not just like any other internship that you get to do in other NGOs or organisations,” Emilia remarks.
Trampoline House welcomes every qualified applicant to send an application and join the house, either as a volunteer, visitor or an intern, like Ellen and Emilia.
Support Trampoline House
Trampoline House’s many activities are possible thanks to donations from individuals, who each donate between 50 and 500 kr. every month. If you, your partner or your mother is also able to support our work with a recurring donation, it would really make a great difference to our work.
Read more
