World Youth Alliance Asia Pacific

Internship for Public Relations class

   A Report by Hazel Franchesca V. Paras

 To Sr. Bernard Bagaman

 

I.                  PRE - INTERNSHIP

Why World Youth Alliance?

When we were offered the opportunity to take our internship as a substitute to our Finals, my initial reaction was ‘I’ll take it!’ I was so thankful for being in that PR class which had the option of taking an internship program, which I believe would be a learning experience on how it was like to live in the professional world. We were given two options, one was for ACASIA and one was for WYA. The first time, I heard about ACASIA and how the organization revolved around theater and arts, I was so ecstatic that I did not even want to hear the next one. So when it was time for the WYA speaker to come up on stage and give a talk about their organization, it seemed that hearing the word ‘international’ attracted me so much that I wanted to hear more. The way the WYA speaker made us feel as if there is so much more to the organization than what we think of. She began to passionately talk about how world Youth Alliance works with a cause and its cause is promoting human dignity. But, how are we supposed to do PR work for dignity and sell something that is not tangible? It seemed as a challenge thinking that who would even want to care about human dignity and make an international organization for it?

What are the main things that Ms. Renelyn Tan and Ms. Christine Violago said that made me decide to take my internship in World Youth Alliance, instead of ACASIA? First, they were very much clear in saying the organization’s vision, which is to make the world aware of each and every individual’s intrinsic dignity and to ensure that in every decision of every country, it would always support the human dignity. It was very clearly stated that being a part of World Youth Alliance required that one has to agree with the charter and the charter says that a human person already has intrinsic dignity and right to life from conception and that World Youth Alliance is against abortion. Secondly, it states that World Youth Alliance acknowledges the importance of family in the development of the human person, morally, physically, spiritually, financially, and emotionally. It believes that the family is the first and the fundamental unit of human society where man and women learn to live in genuine freedom and solidarity. In ACASIA, I did not know what their vision was and what they really work for, thus I didn’t know what they were working for. So, I chose WYA because of the knowledge on what their vision is and knowing clearly what they work for. I realized that it is good to always include the brand’s vision and mission in promoting it because it captivates not only the memory or the rationality/intellectuality of the audience, but also the emotions and the heart of the audience which is important in any public relations work.

What’s in it for me? (common question of the market)

The difference in how the speaker of ACASIA and the speaker of WYA explained the work that they needed from the students. World Youth Alliance seemed to be consistent in saying that whatever work and responsibility that would be given to us will be for a long-term. They would make us members of World Youth Alliance and train us to impact policy and culture through a deeper understanding of human dignity. This has made me realize that working for World Youth Alliance would prove beneficial not only to the company but also to me as a person and as a professional. ACASIA was more of a short-term effect and that the work that would be given to their interns would be just on generating customers and getting more audiences for their play through social media, but what is in it for their interns? The benefits seemed to be unclear and that the internship would be only beneficial to the company. I trust that my internship with WYA would be beneficial for me and for the company.

Externship vs. Internship

I chose to be an extern for reasons that I did not want schedules to clash with my classes or rather take up too much time for my homework time or my review time. Being an extern, as they explained, need not to be in the office regularly. It was, according to them, just working online and abiding by the deadlines. But, what I imagined was wrong, since we weren’t still accredited members; we had to go the office for three times in one week for training and discussions. I thought the training would only be for a week or two but I actually took two months to finish and the training is not easy and was so challenging, but I would elaborate more on than on the latter part of this paper.

Just days after passing all the requirements and showing my portfolio to Ms. Emily Dy, the Marketing Communications Director of World Youth Alliance, I received an email and what made it special was that it was the first ever job acceptance letter I had in my life.

The Acceptance Letter:

From Christine Violago:

Dear WYAAP Interns and Externs,

Happy New Year! We are really excited to work with you. I just have a few reminders for next week. Please find them below:

• The formal start of the Internship/Externship Program is on January 9 (Monday). We will brief you on your projects on that day.

• Your Certified Training Discussions will start on January 9 at 1:00PM at the WYAAP office. We will be discussing Chapter 1 of the CTP Manual (The blue book we gave out to you). Please make sure you have read the articles under this chapter.  Below is the training discussion schedule we agreed upon during your orientation last December:

1.       Mondays- 1:00 -2:30 PM

2.       Wednesdays- 1:00 -2:30 PM

3.       Fridays - Chapter answers are due.

Just after worrying about getting accepted, I had a new concern in my mind, ‘Would I be able to do the responsibilities and tasks that will be assigned to me? Can I go beyond what is expected of me? But what if I fail them, what will happen to me? This was my first steps in the professional world and I couldn’t imagine how life would be for me in that world. How would it be possible to do PR work and promote dignity at the same time.

II.                INTERNSHIP PROPER

The First Meeting: Instructions, Rules, Getting to Know Each Other, & the Big Blue Book

During our first day, January 9, I met my fellow interns/externs like Reggie from La Salle, Monica from U.P., Rejjie from highschool, Lord from CSB, and last but not the least, Jolin from China! We were about 9 (who regularly attend meetings), more came from Miriam College and were my classmates in PR like, Melanie, Ninya, Joyce, and Kring. I knew there were more MC students but I’m not really familiar with the others since I rarely see them in the office, at least, as much as we do. We were actually needed to come to the office Mondays and Wednesdays for trainings which aren’t simple as anyone can imagine.

The Big Blue Book

World Youth Alliance Track-A-Training, that’s the name of the big blue book. It contained 400 pages full of words and just like an encyclopaedia. The content was all philosophical articles, constitutional laws, and declarations. Chapters were entitled Foundational History, Human Dignity, Freedom, Solidarity, Culture, History of Ideas, and International Law and Human Rights.

We never missed or skipped a single word in the book flooding with ideas, philosophies, laws, and declarations. We were even required to answer questions and submit every Friday. This training was more of a highlight, at the first three weeks, than the PR work. It was so challenging and it was so mentally difficult, as it is not just intellectual but also philosophical. The fact that signing up for World Youth Alliance added up the pile of things to do made it more challenging for me. It was like we signed up for a Philosophy/Constitution/PR subject combined; a big challenge indeed.

Passion for World Youth Alliance

However, despite the hardships in dealing with the book, its contents proved to be life changing for me. The first chapter was about WYA’s foundational history which helped me develop a sense of ‘WYA-ness’ or rather the feeling that I am about to do something to change the organization and the world in my own little ways through my abilities, in my case, PR abilities.

Then, I realized, how would I ever promote World Youth Alliance to the people if I don’t even know what it stands for, what its beliefs are, and the reason behind the organization? In doing Public Relations, it is essential that you base your activities on the image of the organization, thus, PR practitioners should know the fundaments of its client before it can conceptualize and implement PR activities, such as events.

First Major Project for World Youth Alliance: The Storyboard for WYA Orchestra

Ms. Emily Dy, the Marketing Director of WYA Asia Pacific, stated the problem with the videos of the World Youth Alliance Orchestra. World Youth Alliance Orchestra is composed of musically talented young people from all over the world, but based more in New York. Whenever they perform, their performance would always be phenomenal and beautiful and these performances are always recorded on camera and would never fail to be uploaded in the World Wide Web, specifically in Youtube, but the problem is that, when people watch it, they never are compelled to know more about World Youth Alliance, or even watch more WYA orchestra videos at least.

Troubleshooting – as an aspiring PR practitioner, I put myself in the people’s shoes and watched a few WYA videos. I quickly realized what the problem was, the video did not build World Youth Alliance’s brand image much for it was uploaded they way it was recorded. The videos uploaded were raw videos. I thought that it would make an impact to the audience if the videos had an opening billboard (OBB) and a closing billboard (CBB) which will leave a mark to people who would watch the WYA Orchestra videos, since it would be the OBB and CBB which would be able to build up an image.

STORYBOARD # 1: Proposed Promotional Video

STORYBOARD #2: Closing Billboard (with Call to Action)

 RESULTS OF PROPOSAL:

Ms. Emily Dy approved the storyboards and expressed how she liked the idea and how the idea is connected to WYA’s charter in a way that would still appeal to the young people of today, considering that my proposed promotional video would incorporate the pop music culture of today’s youth and how it would connect to the classical music played by the WYA Orchestra.  It was also good, according to her, that I have shown them my ability to talk the WYA language through the story script, ‘unity in diversity’. Thanks to the Track-A-Training book!

Not only did Ms. Emily approve of my storyboard, she even sent it to the New York Headquarters and even the WYA officers of New York liked my proposal and they expressed excitement in seeing this proposal turn into reality. Knowing that my work (as a total beginner) was already approved by international people made me feel like I have so much to offer to the world.

Second Major Project: Updating the Official World Youth Alliance Blog

From Ms. Emily Dy – 

Hi Hazel, congratulations for the storyboards, here’s another individual assignment. Instructions: The point of the WYA Tumblr account is for it to be a compilation of news from all the WYA Regions. Each region already has its own Twitter/Blogger/Facebook accounts, and HQ has the main WYA website to post news. The Tumblr account should be updated weekly with all the news found on all the other sites.

It was a pressure to me knowing that I was trusted with the password and the power to control the World Youth Alliance official site and that I was the only one to update it and nobody else and have I already mentioned that that official site is not only of the regional World Youth Alliance but the site trusted to me was the official site of the whole World Youth Alliance (from Africa, from Latin America, Europe, Phile, etc.!)  It was really overwhelming to think that even people outside the country would see my posts or updates. From the very beginning I knew I needed supervision and I believe I should not feel ashamed to ask for help if I needed it.

Looking at the current WYA blog, my honest opinions were that the blog seemed to be sort of dull since the posts looked all the same. The blog was full of videos which were all black squares with the white ‘play’ button in each square. I told myself I had to do something to change the way it looked. I figured the look of the blog would not really compel young people to engage more in reading of the blog, so I decided to change the format of the posts and add some words in it, words that are conversational. I would want the blog to have a more personal touch so that it could reach out to its market.

In the first blog updates I posted, I rewrote some news about World Youth Alliance in a conversational manner and added personal pictures in it so that it would look more grounded, but still, I thought I needed Ms. Emily Dy to manage what I am posting to check if it’s okay and if it’s going to be effective.

From Ms. Emily: Hi Hazel,

Thanks for updating me when you've worked on the Tumblr account. Keep sending me email updates whenever you've posted so I can check on it. Yes it's correct and it looks good. But moving forward, post a lot of small items like videos, photos, quotes to balance out the long ones that you have already posted. I suggest that if you or any of your batchmates have favorite / inspiring quotes from the training materials.

Thanks for telling me what sort of guidance you need; I really appreciate it because it helps us figure out the best way to work together. A skill that will help you when you jump into the working world soon!Have a good weekend ahead, see you on Monday :)

Taking Ms. Emily’s suggestions, my next posts were shorter but I made sure it was clever. I posted quotes, pictures, and event posters with captions that invited them to come along, but I thought that it might not be enough; I wanted more participation from blog readers, so I came up with a ‘movement’ with the consent of Ms. Emily and I posted “How far will you go to promote dignity?”  I  posted pictures I saw in WYA facebook accounts that shown how people promote dignity and invited them to post pictures of themselves promoting dignity and post in on FB and that they would be featured in the WYA Official blog.

As to what I learned in PR classes, it is important that the market knows its importance and its role, that is why audience participation will always be a good means to build the image, generate awareness and loyalty, and to do PR work. Incorporating these lessons in my work has made it beneficial to World Youth Alliance.

From Ms. Renelyn Tan:  Dear Hazel, Thanks so much for the extra effort you're putting in to help WYA's visibility. I'll be asking Christine to print some materials that we can post. Great work!

From Ms. Emily Dy:  Just checked it, good job! The posts are now more even and varied. Thanks for all your work on this. I love that you took the extra step of making helpful notes and if we need permission to post.

Third Major Project: Heart in Art: Dignity through Freedom of Artistic Expression

The WYA regional directors Ms. Renelyn Tan and Ms. Christine Violago wanted us, their externs, to put up an event as part of our externship experience. They explained that any kind of event will do as long as it would be related to World Youth Alliance, of course. And because we knew the essence of World Youth Alliance already, my team and I came up with an event that will truly build WYA’s brand image and that will focus on its target market. I was the appointed leader by our marketing supervisor, Ms. Emily Dy. My responsibility was to create the project implementation plan and project proposal.

The event we have conceptualized was a film presentation of Fine Dining, a winning film by Lance Katigbak which won in the Manhattan Film Festival and an art exhibition that presented traditional art, photography, graphic design (digital) made by the youth, specifically 13 to 30 years old. The date of the art exhibit happened on the night of March 9, 2012 (Friday, 7-10pm) and took place on Xanland 303 (WYA office). This art exhibit showcased the youth’s artistic talents. Our target audience and participants were mostly outsiders, it was good to have outsiders because our goal was to increase awareness of World Youth Alliance and generate more WYAAP Facebook-likers, and WYA members! This event was also made worth-attending because it offered free dinner (pizza, pasta, and desserts) and also free flowing drinks, which we believe is another motivation for the Filipino youth to attend since Filipinos are fond of food. There were a lot of college students, not only from across Katipunan but also from across the Manila area too, who participated in the event. Their artistic submissions were incredibly great and it brought life to our event vision which is to show how one has human dignity and can join in unity despite diversity.

The event was not only attended by students, but also attended by friends and families of WYA members. There were also people who were older and younger than our target age bracket. It was also a ground for our PR work. We have mingled with possibly, each and every one of them and talked about our work in WYA in a conversational way while referring to the art exhibit. Also, our program has set more attendees to go a step further through liking the WYAAP Facebook Page and to sign the WYA charter and be a member.

Event Objectives:

General objective: To build WYA’s brand image and their market awareness as a youth organization that welcomes diversity and promotes unity within diversity through showcasing different artistic contributions unified in one art exhibition in one theme, ‘dignity’.

Specific objectives:

1)      To invite outsiders and WYA members to showcase their artistic talents, specifically in visual arts

2)      To explain and present intrinsic dignity and freedom to the youth through the art exhibition and through the event’s opening remarks.

3)      To get WYA to know more about the culture of the present generation wherein digital graphic design is a trend and photography is a growing passion since many students nowadays are equipped with DSLR professional cameras.

4)      To get the audience and participants appreciate their culture, their community, and their individuality through the exhibit.

5)      To generate more WYAAP Facebook page likers so that it will be easier to promote future WYA events.

6)      To invite and encourage the audience to ‘sign the charter’ (after giving them flyers or brochures that explain WYA’s philosophy)

Program Flow:

6:00pm – Registration: Sign up sheets, laptop to “like” WYAAP Facebook page

6:30pm – Opening of event, Introduction (Unity in Diversity art exhibit and Lance Katigbak film festival) to be hosted by Hazel, Melanie, and Joyce

7:15pm - Introduction to WYA (to be hosted by Ms. Renelyn Tan)

7:25pm - Introduction to WYA Film Festival (Ms. Renelyn Tan and to be introduced by Lance Katigbak)

7:35pm - Screening of the Fine Dining and other films from the festival

7:45pm – Break

8:00pm - Director on the Spotlight (Lance Katigbak)

8:10pm - Speakers/Artists (to be moderated by Melanie and Hazel)

8:30pm - WYA Member’s Reaction

8:40pm - Open Forum (to be moderated by Joyce)

8:45pm - Closing Remarks (Ms. Christine and Ms. Emily)

9:00pm - End of Program

Outcome of the event:

Since the registration required its guests to like the World Youth Alliance page before they enter, the event organizers had generated more ‘likers’ of the WYA Asia Pacific facebook page which will make it easier for future event invitations. Most of our attendees has also signed the WYA charter and became a member of World Youth Alliance. Because of the opportunity to meet new people, WYA has widened its contacts and has also increased more awareness of the market to the organization and this awareness is also relative to what WYA stands for, dignity (through freedom of artistic expression). What is also good about the event is the fact that not a single peso was shelled out by World Youth Alliance in putting up the event. The art/pictures were printed by the artists themselves, the decorations were made out of recyclable materials and some were donated by WYA members, the food (free dinner) was made possible because of the potluck system for only us, event organizers. We have applied another PR lesson which is the importance of resourcefulness in marketing organizations/clients.

 The increase of WYA members during the night of the event was an outcome of how we executed the objective of the event and reinforced the importance of promoting dignity and how it can change the world. We have appealed to both the emotional and rational aspect of our market.

Reflections

All in all, the World Youth Alliance office served as a training ground for me, professionally. I learned the basics of employee-to-boss relationships, employee-to-employee relationships, and employee-to-work relationships as well. I believe that my internship with World Youth Alliance Asia Pacific served as a eye-opener on what the world really needed. I learned here in WYA, through the work I do and through the discussions we had in our training, I learned that one’s job should not stop at being just a job, but rather one’s work should have the essence of human dignity, knowing that your job has something good to contribute to the world and knowing that you as an individual have all the capabilities to make the world a better place. I can say that my internship in World Youth Alliance equipped me with purpose, motivation, and meaning for the next professional experiences to come my way. As I work in different office settings, I will always take with me the philosophy of World Youth Alliance and that is everyone has intrinsic dignity and that my work should always promote dignity in every aspect. 

Recommendations for World Youth Alliance

The opportunities and the experiences that WYA has offered to us are beyond sufficient. Unlike other internships in which the interns are just asked to photocopy this, make coffee, cut news clippings, etc., World Youth Alliance gave us the opportunity and the trust of working for higher tasks such as events management, social media monitoring and writing, marketing and PR activities, and such. It is recommended that they maintain the amount of tasks given to their future externs/interns. However, a lot of us had a problem with the big Track-A-Training book, it actually consumed more time than some PR work which should not really be the highlight of the internship. We signed up for PR work and not for philosophy. It would be better if the Track-A-Training readings were more summarized for interns who have classes and school during their internship. It was really hard doing academics with work together and I recommend WYA to be more aware of that.