Xinrui Wu, Honours Bachelor in International Development and Globalization, 4th year
Internship country: Vietnam
Canadian NGO: MAC
Local NGO: AEPD
My internship in Vietnam was very different from what I had imagined “international work” would look like. Once I actually entered the project environment, I realized that my daily life mostly revolved around very specific, practical, and sometimes messy tasks.
During my internship in Quang Binh Province, the organization I worked with primarily focused on empowering people with disabilities. I participated in community visits and workshops, took meeting notes, organized documents, and assisted with proposal writing and project-related materials. Most days did not feel as structured or complete as the case studies we discussed in class. Instead, the work often consisted of many small, unexpected tasks.
Sometimes we had to leave early in the morning to visit the villages. The farther we drove into the countryside, the narrower the roads became, with large rice fields stretching out on both sides. Along the way, local staff constantly contacted community leaders, and occasionally we even had to change our route at the last minute.
The first time I attended a community workshop, I was actually very nervous. Because of the language barrier, I couldn't fully understand what everyone was discussing, so I kept opening translation apps on my phone and worried I was falling behind. Over time, I slowly found my role. I helped prepare the room, organize materials, take photos, record the flow of activities, and observe the discussions happening around me.
I remember one particular day when we visited several households in the same village. The weather was extremely hot, and every time a motorbike passed on the dirt road, it left clouds of red dust behind. When we arrived at one family’s house, I expected us to begin the formal interview immediately. Instead, the host invited us to sit down and drink water first. The conversation started with completely ordinary topics，such as whether it had rained recently, how the children were doing in school, and which family in the village had recently built a new house.
At first, I did not really understand why we were spending so much time talking about unrelated things. According to our schedule, we still needed to collect the information quickly and move on to the next household. But the local staff member leading the visit remained patient and never rushed into the main questions.
Only later did the family begin to talk about their actual difficulties. Their toilet had been broken for a long time, but they felt embarrassed to mention it because other project teams had visited before, asked questions, and then never returned.
That was the moment I realized that those casual conversations were not meaningless at all. For many communities, outsiders arriving with documents and projects do not automatically earn trust. People first need to feel that you are willing to listen to them as individuals, rather than simply completing forms and collecting information. In many cases, the relationship between people mattered more than any formal document.
Besides community activities, I also spent a lot of time on office work, including organizing English documents, revising proposals, and checking translated materials. Sometimes the same document had to be revised repeatedly because multiple partners were involved, and certain wording needed to be handled very carefully.
One experience that stayed with me was helping with a proposal related to water and sanitation facilities for ethnic minority children in a mountainous area. We had to repeatedly confirm the budget, toilet design, number of students, and construction arrangements. It was the first time I truly realized that international development work is not only about theories discussed in classrooms. Much of it involves detailed, practical, and often time-consuming implementation work that requires patience.
Looking back now, I think my biggest takeaway was not learning one specific skill. Instead, it was seeing, for the first time, what international development work actually looks like in practice. It is not always filled with dramatic moments of “changing the world.” More often, it consists of community visits, meetings, document revisions, and many ordinary tasks that may seem small but still need to be done.