Vytas Neviera. International Organization for Migration (IOM), Vienna, Austria.
Firstly, I'd like to thank "Partners 4 Value Program" for the chance to live my dream and to learn things I could only dream about before. Secondly, I want to express my gratitude to the host organization for taking me in and giving the opportunity to learn and grow, both professionally and as an individual.
Haruki Murakami once wrote:
"Team sports aren't my thing. I find it easier to pick something up if I can do it at my own speed. And you don't need a partner to go running, you don't need a particular place, like in tennis, just a pair of trainers."
I cannot say that I have the same feelings for team sports as he does, as I love team sports, but I must agree about how important it is to have the right shoes for doing your thing at your own speed. And thanks to "Partners 4 Value Program" I got a chance to be a part of fun, interesting, smart, and highly-skilled team of professionals at International Organization for Migration Regional Office Vienna which offered me perfect running shoes for doing things on my own speed - I was doing an internship as an assistant to LHD (Labour Migration and Human Development) unit and was learning as much as I can and gaining many valuable experiences over the period of six months.
About Organization
International Organization for Migrations is a non-profit intergovernmental organization was established in 1951. It is organization which is committed to the principle that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society and assists migrants and promote adequate responses to migration issues, bearing in mind the well-being of migrants and the interests of States and their societies. Nowadays it has 149 Member states and 100 nations have an observer status, and it works in more than 470 field locations all over thw world.
I myself did my professional internship at IOM Regional Office Vienna, which is one of the eight IOM Regional Offices worldwide, was founded only in 2011. This office is tasked with formulating regional strategies and plans of action, as well as providing programmatic and administrative support to the 20 countries within the region of South-Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The Regional Office employs technical experts in four fields of migration management: Migration and Development, Facilitating Migration, Regulating Migration and Forced Migration. The Regional Office staff also deals with various cross cutting issues and puts this technical knowledge at the disposal of the country offices in support of their local activities and thereby also to the governments of the countries in the region.
Daily work
Of course, the most important part of the internship was working and learning. Gladly, I can state that the work I was doing was interesting and challenging most of the time. And it was never boring as tasks replaced one another, and sometimes even piled up as one task was of higher priority than the other, which meant that the work was dynamic. It required all my attention and efforts, creativity and knowledge. Also, it required me to be aware of the possible challenges, which were outlined and helped to be overcome by my great supervisors and colleagues, who shared their knowledge with me more than willingly and always encouraged to ask. As one of them once put it - ask and you shall be answered. :)
The work I was doing comprised many different tasks - from gathering information and then writing analysis on projects related to
youth unemployment, employability, migration, its management and importance to
local labor market, raising awareness about human trafficking which were carried out
by IOM in the region, and to creating first drafts of cross border cooperation projects on economic development with focus on and importance of tourism sector and human resource management and accumulation and analysis of the information, its preparation for the use in the application for the project. Or writing analysis and paper on remittances and its
influence on economies and households of the recipients of the remittances, or processing and analysing statistical data of various trainings carried out by IOM offices in 2011 in the region. And even preparing a newsletter on showcase LHD projects which were carried out by the organization in the year 2012! Great variety of tasks helped me to learn me so much that I hadn't even dreamt about before.
Challenge
The greatest challenge that I faced during the period of my internship was a proper time management. Due to the intensity and dynamics of the work, I had to know how to distribute my time properly. At the beginning it was rather difficult, however, in time I'd learned it and was doing pretty great with it. Nevertheless, there's always room for improvement! Another challenge was the lack of particular knowledge of the field that I've dealing with. But it was solved pretty quickly, once I immersed myself into the work and was trying to absorb the new things to me from the fast everyday flow of information.
Country & City
Austria and Vienna are definitely great places to be and to live!
At the beginning I was a little afraid that without knowing German, I will suffer from being lost in translation. However, it did not happen. Actually, it was other way around. I started picking up German rather quickly and only because of my intensive work and studies at the same time at home university, I haven't learned German to the extent that I could properly converse. And actually, if you go to Vienna or Austria and don't know German, you shouldn't be afraid - everyone there speak English and are very polite, helpful and understanding. Of course, I should say big thanks to all of my flatmates and their friends who helped me a lot to get around and understand many things, that wouldn't have been so clear otherwise!
Anyways, Austrians and Viennese people are polite and very helpful, they will always help once you'll overcome your own fear of asking for help.
About the beauty of the country and the city I shouldn't even talk as they're famous the world all over for that. However, I think must mention it too as they definitely deserve that! I haven't gotten much chance to travel around the country, but those few places I have seen are impeccable - beautiful nature and romantic villages in the mountains, and architectural marvels in the capital city are breathtaking and fascinate all visitors. Vienna itself is a Great city. And I mean it and that's why I wrote "great" with the capital "G". It is not too expensive to live if you have a normal life. Of course, if you like eating out very, it might be costly, but if you cook at home, then it's not such a big deal. Rent is very affordable and if you have the luxury of time to look for a room/apartment, you can get a very good offer for a great price. The transport system there is perfect - it is always on time (seriously, always). The monthly ticket is rather cheap when you think that you get to use four types of transport (metro, trams, buses and local trains) with the same ticket for almost the same price as monthly bus ticket without discount costs in Vilnius. Furthermore, if you like cycling, it's perfect as bicycle road network is very developed and you can get to almost any place in the city. Moreover, the city of Vienna is green. Many parks within the city offer you a refuge from the busy city life. And last, but not least, the city is full of arts - dozens or hundreds of museums and galleries cater to the taste of everyone. If you don't like modern or medieval art, but you're into languages or trams, then you can go to the museums designed to satisfy your particular interests.
I am definitely happy that I got a chance to live and work there for a while. And I think I should disclose the fact that I fell in love with the city of Vienna already during my time there. I guess it was a perfect match of an interesting work and beautiful place that made me fall in love with the city.
And I can only be thankful to the "Partners 4 Value Program" for giving me the chance to learn, to live and to love. And do all of it at the same time.
I knew what I wanted from the internship. It completely met all my expectations and even surpassed them in some aspects. And the collaboration of the "Partners 4 Value Program" and the IOM let me get what I wanted, what I worked for before and helped me to make further steps towards the dream that I've been striving for.
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