Professor Norbert Lammert and Va Synel

Given the opportunity of the internship, I can describe my personal experiences at Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Cambodia in three words: Inspiration, Best-timing, and Stronger-self-growth!

My name is Va Synel, a Master Candidate in Small and Medium Enterprise Training and Promotion at Leipzig University of Germany and find here my internship impression at this German Political Think Tank!

Inspiration

Two things contributed here: Legacy of Konrad Adenauer and supervisory advice from Robert, my internship supervisor.

I have seen his face every day I come to Phnom Penh Office. Actually his pictures, in the frames, on the signature blue walls, and the standing statute! He reminds me daily of the value of gaining experiences while studying. Konrad Adenauer, the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963 remarked that “Experiences are the seeds out of which wisdom grows”. To gain good experiences and to fulfil the requirement of my Master's Program, I applied to Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

I made outreach to Robert, Program Manager at Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Cambodia and I decided to come back to Cambodia. I am inspired by him, in fact, we have a common interest in a similar research topic, therefore, I requested him to be an intern, and finally accepted to KAS. And I made the right decision!

Best-timing

First, something special about KAS Phnom Penh I cannot forget to share here. KAS is an international political think tank, and everything is structured. There is a distinct responsibility in each person, however, KAS has less hierarchy in job positions that allows the communication more streamlined. The culture is more toward the bottom-up approach which everyone understands the tasks that need to perform and propose the solutions. I was handed over a paper that covers a list of the activities during my internship period. The activities do not limit what I may accomplish but reflect on what I should do. As I expected, the first day I was introduced to the other colleagues by my supervisor. Robert guided me around the office before escorting me to my desk which is next to the meeting room. Coincidently, it was just a day before our event “ASEAN-EU Relation: Navigating Divides, Deepening Corporation”, and I had the opportunity to participate immediately and performed my first task as an event evaluator. Most importantly, I was so honoured to meet our Chairman, Prof. Dr. Norbert Lammert, for the first time in KAS Phnom Penh Office. A chance like this does not usually happen!

Stronger-self-growth

The incredible chance of working with KAS brought me a lot of things to take away on the road of further personal and professional development. I could not be more grateful for using this chance as part of my development. It is for three months’ time, and I experienced so many things. I enjoyed participating in the events outside the office, the conferences outside of the capital city such as Siem Reap and Kompong Cham, where I performed my role for the first time in my life as a translator in front of hundreds of audiences at the event called “Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Towards Inclusiveness in Digital Economy”.

For three months I had a chance to meet many amazing people, within and outside of KAS. Each and one has a different kind of amazing knowledge and field of researches to help Cambodia. I also learned to be in front of the camera, one to mention is the snapshot video. I found a new side of me who confidently carried a microphone in the public place. Additionally, another incredible experience was the lunch learning where I had a chance to present the results of the survey of my own field research on “Innovative Work Behaviour”, followed by constructive feedback from professional KAS colleagues.

Last but not least, practical experiences allowed me to be independent in my own work and I received good feedbacks that greatly contributed to my Master’s project; on the other hand, developing my knowledge in political and sustainable innovation areas. Now, drawing nearer to the end of the internship, I am enthusiastic and have come to full of hope to use the knowledge as a bridge to brighten my future career.