Empowering Education through Finance

Hello everyone!

My name is Sayora and I am a junior majoring in Economics at Whitman. This summer, I was fortunate to intern at the Central Asia Institute (CAI) in Khorog, Tajikistan as a Finance Intern. This internship was a great way to implement the knowledge I acquired from my Economics and Finance classes at Whitman. I aspire to work with non-profit organizations in the future and perhaps lead one someday, so this internship was a great chance for me to learn how non-profits operate and what I, as an Economics student, can bring to the table.

CAI is a non-profit organization whose primary focus is to protect and support the people of remote and vulnerable Central Asian regions through education and literacy projects, especially among girls and women. Working alongside the Finance Officer of CAI was a great learning experience, as she guided me through budgeting and preparing all sorts of financial reports. It may seem like a dull job for someone, but I saw a lot of value in this kind of job.

During my first week of the internship, I met the CAI team and learned more in-depth about their projects, vision, and approaches. Some of their big projects during my internship were the construction of a school and a kindergarten in the remote areas of the Badakhshan region, the implementation of solar power panels in a local school, as well as a training for unemployed women on how to find jobs. Also, I spent some time looking through the bank and financial statements of this organization to understand how the money is being used.

The time I interned at the company aligned with the annual audit check, so the Finance Office was busy checking the accuracy of their documents, where I got familiarised with governmental policies companies have to comply with. I would work with the Finance Officer and help with verifying the accuracy of bank and financial statements and bank conversions. It was confusing in the beginning, because the reports were mostly on paper, and they included many receipts
and bank statements, so working with that much data was difficult at first. Therefore, I listened to the instructions of my supervisor carefully and made sure that I addressed any unclarity. With time, by working through the documents I learned so much more than I could have learned in a classroom. In addition to working with the Finance Officer, I was assigned individual tasks, such as preparing the procurement sheet, that helped the organization choose a supplier for the solar panels and inventory audit.

Apart from working with tons of numbers in the financial statements, I was able to participate in recruitment interviews when the organization was hiring a Communications Assistant. This gave me a chance to go over candidates to go over resumes and attend the interview. It was really interesting to see how recruitment happens in an organization and what I should do as a candidate applying for jobs. Also, I had a chance to look into the fundraising side of the organization. My experience as the Assistant Manager at the Annual Giving Office was useful in understanding the importance of philanthropy and donor relationships. At Whitman, I was more on the donor relation side and during my internship, I was working with the financial transactions.

Overall, I enjoyed interning at CAI and I felt very welcomed to the team. My first day was very scary because seeing all the tasks I had to do was overwhelming and I felt that I did not have enough knowledge or expertise to complete them. It made me feel desperate in some way, but after getting my hands on them I realized it was not as bad as it seemed. I ended up learning a lot about the procedures that take place in almost every organization. I would like to thank the
Regional Director and the Finance Officer of the CAI for enabling me to intern at this organization and the WIG for providing me with an opportunity to do an internship in the field that I feel very passionate about.

And thank you, dear reader, for reading my blog till the end! I hope you found it useful or at least interesting to read!