Work experience at the Diana Award

I have recently completed a week’s work experience at the Diana Award. I’m Philip Rogers and I received the Diana Champion Volunteer Award; since receiving my award I have been very busy with studying a Computing course at college and volunteering at an old people’s home.

I’ve also been involved with other charity events for Sutton Mencap where I dressed as Santa for the disabled children. I still get a great kick out of volunteering and fundraising, I am currently planning to do a skydive this year for Sutton Mencap.

I chose to do work experience at Diana Award because I feel that they are a great charity that do a lot of good and I feel that they are very unique in the sense of the work they do I.e. the awards they give out to individuals who have done good for society; I am also unaware of any other charities that promote the forgotten people who do great inspiring work around the globe.

During my week at the Diana Award I learnt about the logistics that go into preparing award ceremonies. I created a PowerPoint presentation that will be used during these ceremonies. I also wrote the biographies about the new Award Holders, this was challenging as they had to be quite short but also had to demonstrate their amazing work.

I also learnt how the database was operated and was shown how to amend data and create new information for the new nominees; as I am currently doing a database module at college it was a great help to be able to work on a real life working database.

The best bit of the week was working in the office with very nice and very easy to get along with people. There was a great atmosphere in the office as there was always fun and laughter which was a great help when spending hours amending the database.

I would strongly recommend that if you are looking for work experience then consider the Diana Award as they go out of their way to guarantee that you get the most useful tailored made work experience for your college course requirements. If you are interested then email Katie on katie.marple@diana-award.org.uk who will be able to assist you further.

Merry Christmas everyone!

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Takeover Day at the Diana Award

“I’m Raihan Latif and I have received the Diana Champion Fundraiser Award in September 2012.

I applied to do market research with the Diana Award for Takeover Day 2012.

On the 20th November, I left home at 5am to get the coach from Leicester to go to the Diana Award office in London. The start of the day was a hard push but when I arrived at the office near Waterloo I was greeted with smiles and a an upbeat team, the outlook for the day brightened.

I was taken on a quick tour of the office and received a warm welcome from the team. Everyone told me a bit about their role and day to day tasks at the organisation.

The first job was to look over the Diana Award nomination forms and to check if the nominator had submitted enough information about the nominee to go forward to the scoring. I then read through the forms and scored the nomination, my score was compared to the other members of the team who also had assessed the nomination. It was really fun to read through the forms and see all the work young people do to make a difference to their communities. There were a few nominees who really had the ‘wow-factor’.

In the afternoon I phoned schools and colleges in Northern Ireland to promote the award and to encourage them to nominate their inspirational young people for a chance to get a Diana Award.

I enjoyed meeting the team and talking to different school in Northern Ireland. I learnt to speak professionally and enthusiastically on the phone and this really boosted my confidence.  The day made me realise they are so many more opportunities to get involved with the Diana Award and I look forward to attending the Inspire Day on 10th December.”

For more information on our National Youth Inspire Day, or to book your free place as a Diana Award Holder please email katie.marple@diana-award.org.uk

Children’s Commissioner’s Takeover Day 2012 is a national event led by the Children’s Commissioner for England which gives children and young people the chance to shadow jobs, get involved in decision-making and offer their opinions on key issues.

To find out about Children’s Commissioner’s Takeover Day events around the country, click here.