Transcript:

Working in an international context

My name is Peter Potsepp. I am from Smithers, a small town in northern British Columbia. I studied International Relations at the University of British Columbia.

My internship was with COL, the Commonwealth of Learning, which is in Vancouver. They sent me to the Commonwealth Youth Program regional office in Zambia. It was a rollercoaster—there were so many different and crazy experiences there. The job was a big part of it, but it wasn’t the only part that was interesting. The work experience itself was great; it was very challenging because of cultural aspects. When I first arrived, everything was very different and I was so eager to get started that I almost jumped the gun. I noticed how different and slow everything worked. I wanted to jump in and have my say in everything. But after awhile I realized that I had to sit back and take a look at how meetings operate and how hierarchy and protocol works in these organizations, and then I could determine where I could insert my point of view.

It took a long time to get settled in terms of what my work and project were going to be. Once that was straightened out it was good because I had my own projects that I was in charge of, such as the Regional Youth Caucus. This is a network of youth representatives from each of the countries that were there. For the Caucus I organized a meeting in Pretoria, South Africa. We invited each of the representatives, and we organized the conference and the facilitators. We spoke about lobbying and advocacy skills, fundraising skills, resource mobilization skills. We also built a strategic plan for them because it was a network that became dilapidated and was in need of a revival. So we wrote a strategic plan and report. This is a project that I am proud of because I played a central role in it. I had done some international-related work in previous jobs, but this was the first time that I was given this type of responsibility.

When you first arrive, it takes awhile to get on your feet and to figure out how the system works. There are a lot of emotional ups and downs because you are getting used to the new culture. After four or five months you start to get a good feeling that this is your home and you know how the system works. You know that you are making a difference, for example by changing the office systems around so that the paper gets delivered on time. You can see that people are happy with your ideas. In the end I felt that I had made a difference.

As a Canadian, you take yourself for granted. You don’t know exactly how you look in the eyes of another culture. I tried to make a conscious effort to bring what is positive about me and about Canadians, to share that information. People always have so many questions about Canada. “What is the economy like?” and “how expensive are things?” and “can you help me get there?” are all common questions.

It was nice to be able to explain about where I come from. It makes me happy to live in Canada. I knew that after this internship I wanted to return to Canada and work here for awhile before going abroad again. There are a lot of skills and knowledge here in Canada that are not necessarily in other parts of the world that we can share.