Hello everyone. I’m Dew, an intern student from Thammasat University. I’m so grateful to have the opportunity to be an intern at APTN. Today, I would like to introduce you to my internship experience at APTN. Here is a recap from each month.
December
December 2022 is my first internship month. In the first and second week, I learned about the organisation structure, how APTN work, what our contributions are, and as the regional level organisation how we collaborate and connect with other stakeholders. Regarding the upcoming convening, Reimagine Our Future: Trans and Gender Diverse Peoples Convening, I provided a little help. And I also check the backup website files what the missing parts are.
You can learn more about the convening here:
APTN held “Reimagine Our Future: Trans and Gender Diverse Peoples Convening” in South Asia
Moreover, I also find content and news for sharing on APTN’s social media. My first work is about trans students in Singapore. You can read it here.
Mostly this month is about preparing myself to work with an organisation and learning how an organisation work, and preparing for next year’s event.
January
Happy new year everyone!! After a long holiday, we are still working on the South Asia Convening which will be held in late January. This January, I did a lot of activities that I have never done before, and I’m very grateful for this opportunity.
This month, I still have a duty to take care of finding content to post on our social media. Besides, I have joined important meetings which are so exciting and informative. The first one is meeting with UNOPS. This meeting was facilitated by Nhuun, our advocacy team, we also had a discussion session with UNOPS staff.
You can read more about the meeting here:
Besides the UNOPS meeting, I had an opportunity to join in FIFF consortium virtual meeting. In this call, FIFF consortium members updated their work plans and strategies together.
February
Hello February!! This month my internship was still fabulous. For this month, I had many activities to do but one remarkable activity was attending Spill the disabilli-tea which was organised by Equal Asia Foundation. The event focused on the intersectional approach and the principle of leaving no one behind. The conversation centred around disability and the challenges that people with disabilities face in their daily lives.
At this event, people from Equal Asia Foundation gave a brief introduction to the GetEqual application. You can find the detail about this application here:
And this month I also wrote content to post on APTN’s website. This is one of my works
March
In the first week of this month, I was taking leave for my midterm exam. When I got back to work, there were many things I did this month. Especially during the Transgender Day of Visibility!! So this month, I attended some events that were led or held by trans community.
The first event was about Trans Healthcare which was held by T-HAT group. This event was covered for 2 days, 13-14 March 2023, and had many sessions and speakers from many groups. Moreover, they had a speaker from the health clinic and governmental organisation to share about the present healthcare providing for gender-divesrse people. After the event, I had an opportunity to share my thought and feeling about the event through their social media platform. You can see it here
The second event I joined is a mentoring and seminar session by TransTalents Consulting Group with their partners. The mentoring and seminar session was held on 31st March which is the Transgender Day of Visibility. This event gave me insight views or opinions from people who are in the business sector, and most of them are transgender person. You can read the article that I wrote about this event here
Besides those events, I wrote an article for posting on the APTN’s website and had a chance to share my view on #SOGIESCRightsBelongInSDG, which we shared on APTN’s social media. You can see my quote below.
April
Hello April and happy Songkran Day. This month our organisation have a long holiday and some staff took a vacation. So, I provided some help to them.
In April, most of my responsibilities are about taking care of the APTN’s social media. I looked up for the news or publications about the trans community to share it on our website. And because APTN aims to launch the new website named BeingTrans website to provide information about the transgender healthcare system and help trans to understand more about themselves, I also joined in this work too!! I edited and checked the website and made them ready to launch soon.
Apart from the social media and website, I helped our staff to check the toolkit banner and poster translation.
May
Hello, May!! This is my last month as an intern at APTN. I really appreciate the experiences and lessons I have learnt during the internship period. It’s really helpful for my career path and my personal development.
This month, I attended a community/stakeholder consultation held by the Institute of HIV Research and Innovation (IHRI). In this consultation, we discussed the possible impact of the new medical regulations issued by The Medical Council of Thailand that will affect the access to gender-affirming healthcare nationwide when it becomes effective in November this year and these medical regulations probably have an impact on the regional as well.
Another major event that will happen very soon is the Global Activist Convening which will be held in June. I provided my support to the project management and administration team, I helped them with logistics support and monitored the flight and hotel booking.
The Astraea Global Activist Convening
The Astraea Global Activist Convening took place in mid-June, and this project had been planned for several months beforehand. The purpose of this convening was to build upon the work of The Alchemy Project by bringing together activists advocating for human rights from all around the world. It provided a platform for them to discuss urgent issues and share their perspectives on advancing global strategies for human rights.
This gathering marked the first time that APTN co-hosted a global event. It demonstrates our organisation’s progress as we expand our reach from regional to global levels. I take great pride in being part of this development.
During this event, I had the role of assisting with administration and logistics. I provided support by helping to check and update the logistics details of the participants. Moreover, I had the responsibility of overseeing the volunteer interpreters. Right from the beginning, from the recruitment process to the conclusion of the event, I took care of this task. I am truly thankful that my team trusted me to handle this responsibility. The volunteers were truly impressive. They performed exceptionally well, even in challenging situations. I want to express my gratitude to everyone who supported me in this role. It brings me great joy to witness the growth of APTN during this event.
Finally, my internship journey has come to an end. I’m really thankful for all the things I’ve learned in the past six months. Everyone at APTN has always been supportive and encouraged me to try new things, even if they were outside my comfort zone. Because of that, I now know that I can do many things that I never thought I could. But it’s not just about me, it’s also about every staff member who trusted me and gave me tasks to do. Besides the amazing staff, I also met many supportive people who inspired me throughout this journey. Thank you, everyone. I owe you a lot of things.
At APTN, I grew a lot, and I grew with pride. I will carry this pride and determination with me wherever I go after this. I will work alongside others to make the trans community stronger and uplifted
Love,
News
