IAESTE Newsletter
Introduction
Dear Friends,
it is now almost two months since IAESTE started to feel the first consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this period, all of you have shown tremendous motivation, to keep control of the situation as much as possible and maintain the IAESTE spirit - something for which I would like to thank you for but also would like to encourage you to keep this motivation and spirit!
Looking into global development, a silver lining is already visible to the dark clouds in some regions, while for some other countries the peak of the pandemic is not yet reached. It is still hard to predict how things will develop globally, but the Board will try to re-evaluate the situation during the next meeting and provide further recommendations and advice.
Beside all these developments, the IAESTE community did not stand still and was thinking of ways on how to launch a pilot project on remote internships - not only to use the momentum of everyone working from home, but also to evaluate this concept and present it to the next General Conference for further discussion and development. This is of course, meant as an additional product IAESTE can offer, but not as a replacement of the classic internship experience we have offered for more than 70 years.
I have the strong belief, that during the coming months, IAESTE will gain relevance much more than in the past, because there is no doubt, that travel restrictions will make it harder to go on touristic travels, but for work and educational travel, some countries already have a good model for exceptions and I’m convinced that exchange programmes related to work experience will also benefit from exceptions in the future, earlier than regular tourism.
Stay safe and healthy
Thomas Faltner
President
The situation didn't change a lot for us in the past two weeks, but we strongly hope that you and all your relatives and loved ones are safe and healthy! A short reminder of our possible actions can be found here.
Valentina Carrasco & Mark Feichtinger
A SMALL STEPS approach: short term micro-projects or tasks that can be executed by the national committee, local committee, regional initiative or cross-countries ad hoc group, may be a GIANT LEAP to contribute to achieving our Strategy 2025 goals.
Strategy 2025 Taskforce
A huge THANK YOU to everyone that participated in the webinars about Remote Internships. With the upcoming pilot project, we will discover if we can enter this market! See the future timeline in this article, including a Q&A session announcement.
Mark Feichtinger
As part of the implementation plan of the IAESTE EQS and after 36 meetings (so far) held with members, I would like to share with you some outcomes regarding the first assessment from the EQS perspective.
Valentina Carrasco Rosales
We might be in a bad crunch right now but that doesn't stop the ITS from making your EP experience even better with some major 'under the hood' improvements and implementations.
Kushagra Sharma
Can you imagine, the day we reach our goal?
Any answer is good to get engaged in the IAESTE Strategy 2025.
Whilst physical events are impossible right now, you can still promote your online events on the iaeste.org website to gain some additional exposure and show the world we're still working!
IAESTE Chat
This WhatsApp group is for IAESTE chat! IAESTE Chat is for general discussion/questions about IAESTE related issues. A way for us to stay connected and share our knowledge and opinions on IAESTE topics.
Scan the QR code or follow link to join our WhatsApp group!
We are running a campaign on Instagram iaeste_official to promote your country and attract more students to your social media accounts and available internships. It will also help us to reach our target of 10k Instagram followers, unlocking useful new functionality.
#IAESTEdance challenge
How do we cope in a crisis, stuck at home with a decided lack of fun? By doing the IAESTE dance of course!