By: Jonathan, Community Engagement Coordinator
It’s been a little over two weeks since I began the summer internship job at ETCBC, and so far, it’s been pretty smooth sailing with no storms in view. The Hubster’s annual summer guide, consisting of events and activities to do during the break is nearing its completion and all our scheduled meetings have come and gone with no major difficulties. The days are sublimely quiet and peaceful, which brings as many problems as solutions. Due to the closures in efforts of flattening the curve of COVID-19, I often think of my role as a community engagement coordinator and how that might look like during a time of social isolation. There is this delicate tension between acting out my job responsibilities and understanding the necessary limitations due to the current conditions. I would like to have more in-person engagements but I also need to understand my responsibility in this worldwide initiative as well as discerning unwritten boundaries between me and the victoria village community. I think this is one of the biggest challenges during this time of quarantine.
It’s often difficult to interact with people through an online medium for several reasons. Firstly, there’s the technical limitation among different populations. Some people may not have access to the internet, don’t understand it or simply have unstable connections. Taking this into consideration when publicizing activities, events, or even just basic communication. Then there is the expected disjointness of many third person interactions. Text messages can often be interpreted as passive aggressive or rude without the tone of voice being explicitly stated. Although this is not exclusive to this year, I certainly feel like the risk for miscommunication is greatly heightened due to the extensive focus on an online medium of communication.
Another challenge that is unique to this year’s internship, is the level of independence and integrity needed. Most of the work is unsupervised, besides the occasional check-ups and meetings. Because of this, a great amount of self-initiative is needed, as slacking off faces no immediate drawbacks or repercussions. This has really challenged me to maintain a stable work schedule though hours are flexible.
Moving forward, I’m really excited to begin working with the hubsters and hopefully being able to coordinate a joint session with the Daniel fellowship at ETCBC. I am looking forward to new upcoming tasks, especially those that involve a bit more interaction.