Last Month marked the end of our Western Chances interns’ placements. Throughout their twelve weeks at the company, we saw our interns grow as they contributed meaningfully to our company’s business practices.
At Cirka, we have an ongoing commitment to young people and their educations. By FY25, we planned to invest $100,000 in education and employment pathways for young people. Part of that commitment has included us supporting 20 students in continuing their education through 17 scholarships and three internships. We are happy to announce that through our continued investment into Western Chances, we have been able to exceed this goal!
We are very excited to continue our partnership with Western Chances and are looking forward to hosting and supporting interns in the future.
As we have come to the end of our summer placements, Moe Myint Tha, Denisa Dobie, and Raquel Vella have reflected on their journey with Cirka. If you want to know more about our interns’ time with us, you can read about their experience in the comments below.
We wish them all the best in the future!
Moe
Moe is a second-year biomedicine student with an interest in preserving the environment. She has enjoyed her time at the Cirka, taking on many responsibilities as the company’s ESG coordinator. Her favourite part of the internship was the opportunity to collaborate and work with other teams to create an ESG-centred company.
Moe became incredibly passionate about her role over the twelve weeks and was excited to be able to expand the ESG department across the business. She was given lots of flexibility as an ESG coordinator and worked on various projects, such as developing plans to reduce emissions and the environmental impact of
Cirka’s operations and learning how to market the company’s ESG component.
“Thank you to Western Chances and Cirka for not only this rare opportunity to create a real positive impact as an intern but also for the unwavering support I’ve received throughout this journey.”
Moe – ESG Coordinator
By leading meetings and presentations, she became confident in sharing her ideas and working with large groups of people. With her new experience in a corporate environment, Moe feels more comfortable entering the workforce in the future.
Denisa
Denisa, a fourth-year psychology honours student, has taken on the people and culture assistant role in Cirka’s human resources department. She has found her time at the company incredibly valuable and has had the opportunity to develop and grow her corporate skills.
As a psychology student, Denisa has been able to apply her education to a corporate setting. While she had only considered a future in clinical psychology, through this opportunity, Denisa has found that human resources may be a pathway to follow in the future.
Denisa’s responsibilities as an intern have spanned across multiple departments, assisting in fulfilling a plethora of administrative needs like updating the employees’ cost codes and superannuation details for the finance department.
However, her main project centred around a large recruitment drive. This task required filtering through over 300 expressions of interest to find 70 possible applicants. Denisa then conducted multiple recruitment sessions to find the most suitable candidates, ultimately hiring 32 people.
“The opportunity to work with Cirka provided me with a strong network that I can reach out to whenever I require help or support in a new role. I would like to thank both Cirka and Western Chances for this fantastic opportunity.”
Denisa – People and Culture Assistant
Raquel
Raquel, a third-year Media and Communications student, has taken on the Marketing and Bid Writer coordinator role in our Growth and Markets team.
Raquel’s main goal during her internship was to assist in improving Cirka’s public image. To achieve this, she completed a variety of marketing projects, including social media content creation. But, her favourite part about working with the marketing team was being able to create the campaign “Cirka Success Stories”. This task required her to interview employees with especially exceptional backgrounds, which she used to create four different news articles.
Raquel’s second role during her time at Cirka was in tenders, where she assisted our Growth and Markets team in creating and submitting tenders. She also had the opportunity to grow her networking skills, meeting people from various backgrounds, such as consultants, contractors, and clients.
“Cirka pushed me out of my comfort zone, providing me with the space to build my confidence and develop my collaboration and communication skills.”
Raquel – Marketing and Bid Writer Coordinator
Raquel has found that Cirka provided her with an invaluable experience that she will continue to utilise in her professional career. She is very grateful that Western Chances and Cirka were able to facilitate this opportunity.
After seeing how our interns have grown and developed, we are very excited to provide this opportunity to more young people in the future.
“We are incredibly grateful to Cirka for their contribution to the success of our Internship Program, and for their dedication to nurturing the next generation of professionals through this initiative. With Cirka’s guidance and support over 12-week placements, the interns have gained valuable industry insights as well as developed crucial skills to help shape their future careers. We truly appreciate Cirka’s belief in the potential of our young people and look forward to a continued successful partnership.”
Zac Lewis – CEO, Western Chances
Cirka thanks our interns for their hard work over the last three months. We wish them all the best in their future endeavours!