Hello, everyone! My name is Charlotte, and today I’m here to share the start of my experience at a Coliving. My aim is to inspire potential future interns and explain a little more about why I’m here.
I’m currently studying for a Master’s degree in Tourism Science and Management at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and this year I have the incredible opportunity to do my internship at Ecoisleta!
I chose this internship because it corresponds exactly to what I want to do later on: learn in the field by putting into practice what I have learnt in class, take on challenges related to the complexity of human behavior, and discover the professional world from a different angle. Frankly, getting out of the classroom and off the beaten track to dive into real life changes everything!
What am I doing during my internship?
I’ll try to explain what I plan to do here over the next few months. For now, I’m observing the dynamics between the coliving residents and reading a lot of studies on community life, the impact of mass tourism on local communities, gentrification, etc.
I’m also trying to talk to the local residents of the island I meet to better understand their perceptions of the impact of tourism from an internal perspective (both positive and negative).
It’s a really complex subject that needs to be approached from many different angles and I hope to be able to make a positive contribution.
Once this phase is over, I am still deciding what would be most meaningful to achieve.
Before my internship, I thought about projects that would aim to create more social ties between the temporary residents of the co-living space and the local community who actually live in the neighborhood. To do this, I would like to involve the coliving residents in a participatory process to find out what best suits the current residents.
I still need to think about how to do this, especially in terms of motivating participants!
Jonatan also gave me the idea of launching small, potentially transformational experiences for coliving residents. For example, we could organize hikes that show us the contrasts related to tourism on the island of Gran Canaria. This idea still needs to be developed, but I really like it.
At the end of this internship, I would like to be able to promote everything we have put in place in order to communicate the opportunities offered by the co-living experience and why it is an interesting experience to have. This could be done with a short video or a photo report.
Learning from mistakes in EcoIsleta
I am very lucky to have Jonatan as my internship supervisor. He gives me a lot of autonomy and lets me make my own mistakes so that I can learn from them and better understand the reality of the field. In addition, he brings new ideas to my thinking and opens my mind to things I hadn’t necessarily thought of, while telling me about his own experience with coliving.
If you are a student at the Université Libre de Bruxelles or elsewhere and are looking for an internship, don’t hesitate to give it a go! The important thing is to take the plunge, not be afraid to learn and meet new people. This internship gives me confidence and boosts me for the rest of my studies and my future professional life.
And for those who want to know more, here’s a little photo of the coliving atmosphere and the wonderful people who make it up.
Feel free to contact me via the blog if you have any questions or want to discuss my experience! I’m open to any constructive comments and new ideas…
