Erasmus Internship at La Giraudiere

Bonjour, toute le monde ! – My name is Gabriela Kot and I come from Poland. I’m a bachelor student in cultural management on Jagiellonian University in Cracow. I always wanted to use my time on the university to travel abroad and France was first on my list. I decided that I will spend my summer holidays in a different way than I usually did and chose to find an Erasmus Internship. For discovering what suits my field of study best, I used an Erasmus Internship base with offers from all over the world.

What drew my attention to internship at La Giraudière was the fact that everything is included. (You can read more about it The all inclusive internship.) Don’t let some paid internships – for example in Paris – fool you. You would still have to find and pay for accommodation and organize meals on your own. At La Giraudière you’ve got everything in one place while being surrounded with splendid countryside of south-west France.

Internship structure

How the days go by – I arrived on a thursday evening at La Giraudiere just in time for the weekend break which normally is from Friday to Monday but due to an arranged excursion on Tuesday, Monday became a work day. I will write about our excursion to the wonderful coastline in my next post.

My duties as an Erasmus intern include, for the moment, office and administration work. I help Paul – the president of Association – with managing the emails and updating information and guides important for our community. The emails includes inquiries and applications from all points of the globe to either volunteer or intern at La Giraudiere. I also take care of the blog, as you can clearly see now. This is the first time I have used the WordPress blogging software so any tips from you would be welcomed. I am improving my skills in communication, marketing, search engine optimization and French language. Living so close to the friendly community of Brossac undoubtedly helps with the last one. All these new skills and experiences will be definitely useful in my future career. I will try to make sure that you receive all the news about how my internship goes here in a very sunny Brossac. It’s 34 degrees today.

Covid affects internship in France

Come and join us in France – Despite the ongoing pandemic and the imposed travel restrictions we are still receiving internship applications for this year but Paul has been cautious in selecting candidates and as a result our group is smaller than pre-covid. Apart from myself and Paul we also have Bill from Indonesia here as a volunteer. Tomorrow a new volunteer arrives from USA and I will update you in my next post.

As a result of the vacant accommodation Paul has open the doors to colocaters and we are accommodating an English couple staying in one of the apartments. You’re more than welcomed to join us and contribute to the association with your unique cultural input. We are open until the end of September 2021 and of course you can apply for 2022.

Written by Gabriela Kot a Polish intern in France