Summer Internship with Green Shoots Foundation
Over the past month, Ava and Malorie, two students from Dauphine-PSL London, had the opportunity to complete their summer internships with GreenShoots Foundation. Both students were studying Economics and Management. Prior to the internship they expressed an interest in understanding more about project impact and educational activities of Green Shoots.Check out their experiences below.
Hi! this is Ava and Malorie, two students from Dauphine-PSL London, and we just completed an internship with Green Shoots under the guidance of Operations Manager Muneezay. Although we each had different responsibilities, we quickly realised that our work was closely connected. Ava focused on understanding and evaluating the impact of Green Shoots’ Access Program, while Malorie was focused on communicating Green Shoot’s impact through digital storytelling and social media. Together, we contributed to GreenShoots’ goal of demonstrating the difference its programs make in the lives of young people in Cambodia.
Ava : “My internship is centered on evaluating the two-year Access Program funded by the US Embassy in Phnom Penh. The program provides evening English classes for young people, helping them build language skills and create new educational and career opportunities. My role was to analyse the program’s results and contribute to a donor evaluation report that would showcase its achievements and identify opportunities for future development.
Over the month, I worked with both quantitative and qualitative data. I analysed student and teacher attendance records, created graphs in Excel to visualise participation over time and wrote data commentaries explaining the trends behind the data. I also reviewed student satisfaction surveys to better understand students’ experiences of the program. During the final weeks, I conducted interviews with teachers, program coordinators and volunteers, before supervising a focus group with students. These discussions allowed me to better understand the program’s structure and provided impactful insights on its results, potential improvements and future developments. Finally, I created the report’s outline using both qualitative and quantitative data I had gathered.”
Malorie : “During this internship, I worked on strengthening GreenShoots’ digital communications. After auditing its existing platforms, including LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and Substack, I developed a social media strategy based around three key themes : fundraising, impact and storytelling. I created a month-long content calendar, designed and wrote regular posts using Canva, scheduled content across different platforms and reviewed engagement at the end of the internship to assess the effectiveness of the strategy. Through this work, I learned how to transform program activities into engaging stories that communicate impact clearly to supporters and donors.”
Although our projects were different, they complemented each other throughout the internship. For example, Ava’s attendance figures and student feedback analysis became valuable resources for creating social media content. By sharing these results, we were able to ensure that GreenShoots’ online communications reflected evidence of impact rather than simply describing activities. At the same time, working with Malorie helped Ava better understand GreenShoots’s wider portfolio of programs beyond the Access Program, placing the evaluation work within the broader mission of GreenShoots Foundation.
Every Thursday, we had a team meeting with Muneezay to discuss our progress, receive feedback and plan the following days’ work. These regular meetings not only helped us stay organised but also gave us important insight into how a small charity manages multiple projects while maintaining strong relationships with donors, partners and communities.
One of the most rewarding moments of our internship came during our final week when we took part in an online focus group with four students enrolled in the Access Program. It was incredibly meaningful to meet some of the students whose experiences were represented in the data. Hearing them describe how the program had improved their confidence in speaking English, broadened their ambitions and created new opportunities reminded us that behind every graph, statistic and social media post are real people whose lives are being positively influenced.
Looking back, this internship allowed us to develop a wide range of practical skills. I, Ava, gained experience in data analysis, Excel, qualitative research and social science research, interviewing and focus group development. I, Malorie, on the other hand, developed skills in content strategy, Canva and digital communications. We also gained a much deeper understanding of how charities both measure and communicate their impact.
We are extremely grateful to Muneezay and Jean-Marc Debricon for welcoming us into the team over the past month. This experience has strengthened our interest in the charity sector and shown us how research, evaluation and storytelling can work together to support meaningful and sustainable change.
