Internship: First day & New Experiences

                             

This is only a tiny portion of the building!

The name of the overarching company I will be interning at is “FIEP”- Federation of industries of the State of Parana (the state in which the city of Curitiba is located). FIEP has subdivisions- SESI, CIFAL, IEP, and SENAI. Each one of these branches holds a specific mission and responsibility to uphold FIEP, in conjunction with UNITAR (training sessions provided by the United Nations itself!).

What is interesting about the structure of FIEP, is that not only does the building itself hold valuable qualities (such as some of the largest auditoriums in Curitiba), but this organization is the starting point towards innovation, sustainability, and even education.

What exactly do I mean, you ask? Before I entered the FIEP building today, I had no idea organizations such as this existed. I am aware that there are organizations in the United States the focus on individual goals, meaning there is an organization made for just one population.

But not in FIEP’s case; FIEP is a center that provides education through SESI (meaning high school classes)- to the children of those that work in the industrial service sector (children of mechanics for example).  FIEP also has a staff for design (of logos, furniture, etc), a staff/school of fashion, a research team, a team dedicated to supporting and starting out small businesses/entrepreneurs, and something I thought was very interesting and creative within itself, a “creativity Lab”-which is exactly what it sounds like; you sit in the lab to be creative and come up with ideas to bounce off of the company for specific goals/projects or even on a large scale.  As we were walking around the building, my manager pointed out that every company needs a creativity lab- how else would google or apple be invented?

My office location, is in the FIEP building under the name CIFAL.

 

the office door & view from the center of the building.

The office room is comprised of 5 people that work for the branch, and luckily, I get my own desk! All of my work colleagues were very helpful in making me feel welcome and gave me a substantial amount of information about the company/work expectations.

My branch, CIFAL, is located in 9 different countries around the world (U.S, Brazil, 2 in Africa, Poland, Scotland, South Korea, China, and Malaysia) and focuses on sustainable urbanization. This can include transportation, the environment, the economy, government structure, and overall development. CIFAL provides training sessions and classes, as well as panel events, aimed towards specific audiences (depending on the project and goals). These audiences are mainly comprised of local actors such as political officials, diplomats, mayors, public and private sectors, and now even students! (as students are the “fresh young minds” of today which will enrich our future).   

Currently, CIFAL’s main project is focused on Anti-Corruption in Latin America. This massive event will be held in November and will have at least 400 members attending this panel discussion and business meetings. Panelists from Singapore will be attending and presenting, as Singapore is the prime epitome of a country sans corruption.

One of Brazil’s biggest problems is corruption itself. The entire public of Brazil is aware of this fact- even though Brazil’s economy increased exponentially; corruption has remained in its structure and government. CIFAL’s main objectives are to promote the detraction of corruption through awareness and education (they will have advertisements throughout the city, mainly in bus terminals where the public is most likely to see it on a day to day basis). My organization will also be promoting the concept of “business ethics” to workers in higher level positions in the business world, and will be asking them to present to target audiences.

As of right now for this grand project, my task will be to translate the program pamphlet and objectives into English- once it is completely revised by the management staff (statistics and finances are still being worked on). In addition to this project and translations, daily, I will be researching for the company and analyzing statistics based on my research.

This will pose a challenge for me, as I am a person that usually requires detailed instruction on how to do a job- which I would then pick up quickly and be very proficient in whatever task was required or necessary. However, simply researching daily, seems somewhat vague to me.

My question is… What am I researching?? Therefore, I must be proactive and establish this by tomorrow.

Last but not least, even though it was my first day at this internship and commencing an internship in general, I was finally able to comprehend how an office environment works as well as the hierarchy in the work environment. As an outsider, hierarchy in professions seems complicated and even vague. Though now, I realize that in order to achieve goals and overcome obstacles, you truly need everyone to work in their respective section- for this is what makes up an entire organization and success.

Additionally, Jonathan and I went to our second class at FAE (the university in the center of the city). Luckily we figured out a schedule that worked for everyone,

And will be attending classes that are for those majoring in linguistics. The class we are attending is called “Portuguese Language” and focuses on the variety of style that the language is written, read, and spoken; all three are different. In addition, we are learning persuasive, emotional, and poetic ways of speech/literature, and the influences that are changing the traditional language (even way of writing), such as technology and different tones.

An interesting point that the professor pointed out, was the fact that there are times when someone is “wrong” for speaking too correctly- as perhaps it intimidates people. She used the professor vs student model as an example.