Julius. UNICRI, Turin, Italy. 2012 Autumn.

I am sociology student at Vilnius University. I found the information about this project on my University career center website and I have to say I was very happy because of the opportunity, the amount and range of the organizations. There were a number of suitable places for my (sociological) internship. Frankly speaking it took a long time and a lot of endeavors to finalize the documents, but at the end it was totally worth. I would like to confirm Ieva’s idea mentioned below, that Lithuanian UNDP office staff and especially Ruta Svarinskaite was acting very quickly, clear and motivating and they helped me a lot. I would like to HIGHLIGHT that I am not a best student at all, not even close to top 10 of my course, but this does not mean that you are not able to apply for it. The marks often does not show the real knowledge neither reflect the characteristics of the person. I honestly strongly encourage all the interested people to take this opportunity which could (should) lift sky-high you and your future career.

The internship and work experience.

As I mentioned before the plenty of organizations participating in this project let me even to choose the organization and thanks for the Partners4Value project, it gave me the opportunity to fulfill my dream. Honestly the primary criteria why I took Torino city was my passion for the Juventus football club and the Italy. Though, the organization was also excellent and now I think that I took the best organization for the sociologist who sympathizes to the criminology. UNICRI – United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, in my view is the perfect example of the office as of itself. At the beginning, of course, the mainly tasks were reading to get in touch with the on-going projects and administrative assistant for Emerging Crime Unit colleagues. But step by step I have got involved in couple of a big projects and have been working on it for all the rest period. I was also trying to adopt UNICRI’s method of research, I had to write reports, work in the team with very frequent short meetings which, in my view, are very effective. Not only the physical condition (office) but also the atmosphere was quite perfect for learning and working. I mean the colleagues and supervisors were very kind and helpful, I believe because of the huge experience in working with interns, when I arrived there was around 8 interns throughout all UNICRI. Before coming I was a bit skeptical about the UN as a slow bureaucratic mechanism, but now I can say that UNICRI is really effective institute (branch of the UN). The activities match the announcement of what UNICRI is doing and doing it quite fruitfully. The projects I was involved was about IP (intellectual property) counterfeiting and environmental crime (green criminology). Now it is my last week and I feel like I have got quite dept knowledge about these two subjects, in addition, I feel that I achieved at least basic knowledge on criminology and UN managerial system. Moreover, I was inspired by EcoCrime conference and decided to write my final thesis on the topic of green criminology. However, this is certainly not the maximum of benefits you could gain during the internship at UNICRI. Leave your doubts and go on!

Living in Turin (Torino).

Torino destroyed one more of my stereotypes. The stereotype was of simple, hardly industrialized city, keeping in mind that the FIAT factories is situated in Torino. At the beginning I hardly believed all the people I met which were saying that Torino is much better than Milano, but now I am really falling in love with the city. It is way much better than Milan in all aspects except popsism, fashion, shopping and sex industry which totally are not priorities of my life. The architecture, cultural live, city center, open markets, student’s nightlife with wide Erasmus network even public transport with the newest metro in Italy is at least not the worse than in Milano (spent there 2 weekends). And the most important the Alpes which you can see on clear days (not very often, sunny day in this case does not mean clear) green areas all around the city in mixing with really simple but in the same time unique architecture creates the face of harmony and really cute city.

However, the heaven does not exist, so I have to say, that the Torino people is not so open  as you can expect to meet in south Italy or Spain, but the majority is well educated and interesting. Also, if you are going to live in Torino prepare yourself for the nightmare then searching the room to rent, it could take even 2 or more weeks. Regarding to this, I could help, but please write the constructive and clear emails (JuliusBertasius@gmail.com). In addition, it is still Italy thereof I had to deal with several public transport drivers strikes and sometimes the barrier of the language…

To conclude, the Torino after some time makes you say – awesome… Please note that this is only my opinion.

                                                                  Clear day in Torino.

   My favorite spot to chill in Torino.

 My office room at UNICRI.