Congratulations to our Semester 42 (Feb 2016) Development Studies Immersion Program (DSIP) participants on the completion of their eight-week Development Professional Placements! The program was concluded with presentations from the participants on Monday, 30 May 2016, attended by ACICIS staff and representatives of their respective Host Organisations.

Bronagh Power, a student from The University of Wollongong, completed her professional placement at Rifka Annisa, a non-governmental organisation focused on the elimination of gender-based violence. Established in 1993, Rifka Annisa provides a wide range of services, including counselling, legal consultation, a safe shelter, a reach out service, support group, research and training, and community activisim. As an intern, Bronagh worked within the Media and Campaigns division, writing blog articles for the Rifka Annisa website on the topics such as family violence and sexual violence in Australia. She also undertook translation work and attended a workshop run by UNICEF on teaching children about violence.

Taylor Bonin from RMIT University spent his eight-week professional placement at Humanitarian Benchmark Consulting and Red R Indonesia. Humanitarian Benchmark Consulting (HBC) is a small team of dedicated and experienced humanitarian experts working within a social enterprise that also manages the Red R Indonesia, an emerging humanitarian agency working for improving international emergency relief. As an intern, Taylor’s tasks and duties ultimately revolved around editing, helping and designing the welcome packs for the Red R General Assembly in August, as well as editing the Red R website content and some proposal writing. The outcomes of Taylor’s projects will likely to be used in the future for Red R Trainings as a template for new visitors to Indonesia.

Robert Franzone (Rob) from La Trobe University had the opportunity to work with the Rumah Impian (The Dream House) team during his eight-week professional placement. Rumah Impian works to combat the unfortunate presence of street children in Yogyakarta. Rumah Impian provides students with shelter, namely the ‘Hope Shelter’, as well as other activities including street contacts, drop-in centres, and Dream Campaigns. Aside from office tasks and assisting the children at the Hope Shelter, Rob also initiated a sustainable garden project for the children at the shelter with hopes to provide them with their own supply of produce.

For more information about this program visit: Development Studies Immersion Program