Project Coordination Experience

Project Coordination Experience :

Our project coordinators tirelessly work across all stakeholders to ensure a smooth understanding and transition for our volunteers. Below our new project coordinator, Sonal Sharma shares her experience of working with people from different backgrounds, conditions and countries :

I have just completed a month with Step Beyond Borders as a project coordinator. SBB organises volunteer programmes and internship opportunities abroad for students and professionals. 

Initially, being an introvert I was worried since a major part of my role was to interact with people that too from across the globe! My daily tasks would entangle a lot of interactions with different kinds of people. Although, over time my mentor Hasmik Ghalechyan helped me overcome these obstacles through constant mentoring and guidance. She helped me understand the expectations of the role for a smoother transition. I will always remain grateful to her for providing me this opportunity and her invaluable time invested in my personality development. I got the chance to explore new horizons of opportunities with new people. 

In my first project, I worked closely with a medical intern travelling from Germany.  I spent 2 weeks at the project to ensure smooth communication and familiarising the intern into the hospital environment. I accompanied him at the ICU, emergency ward and the different departments to ensure an indiscriminate approach from him and the hospital staff. Once the situation looked settled and ready to function independently, I moved on to another project. 

The next project was with another medical intern from Germany. Although, this time I had become more confident and outgoing in my approach since I had a basic idea of how things functioned. We were assigned another hospital and we began by meeting the staff members. 

We conducted an orientation for the intern with the help of the nursing supervisor and discussed the work schedule. This was followed by an ice-breaking session with the senior doctors for effective communication. The doctors were really warm and helpful. The intern was given a detailed profile of different patients and her learning began. 

In retrospect, I wouldn’t have imagined myself working at such an extroverted role. With my dedication towards social work, I have learnt from the on-ground challenges and through the constant help of my peers. Also, I made good friends and got a chance to network with people from different fields. Overall, this has grown me professionally and most importantly personally.