Olivia Norval-Freedman is a student at Collège Camille Sée in Paris (International English section). She chose to do her “observation” internship at Samusocial International and has just finished her week with us.

How did you imagine this internship?

I couldn’t really imagine it but it sounded interesting.

What surprised you most about Samusocial International ?

Seeing the countries where you work and they not being the very poorest countries.

Also, when I visited the Samusocial de Paris centres at St Michel and rue Ridder I was surprised how many people were there and that many did not speak French and they had amazing (difficult) stories. But the places seemed nice and welcoming.

If you could visit one of the countries on the Samusocial International map, which would it be?

Probaby Senegal as it’s the programme I heard people talking about most (Editorial note: Samusocial Senegal recently received a prestigious STARS Foundation award for their work link) so I would like to go and see what it is like for real.

What do you take away from this internship? What will you share with your family, friends and school?

It was a really interesting experience for me and I learned a lot. Seeing homeless people in the street is sometimes disturbing but now I know I can call the 115 to get them help if they want it.

I’ll tell my school about the visits I did with Samusocial de Paris. I’ve already told my parents everything!

———————————————————————

We thank Olivia for all the ideas she brought to help animate our facebook page and also for her updates to the English pages on our website.