Completing the templates and guidelines...

My placement experience at Amnesty International has been a really rewarding experience. I would imagine it has been quite different from the experience I would have received at a consultancy. Amnesty International's Perth office relies on a lot of volunteers to assist them in facilitating the grassroots activism undertaken by the local action groups. The office helps to organise the local group's events and activities, prepares materials for them such as flyers and banners, and liaises with other Amnesty offices when necessary. Sometimes the groups or the office will be undertaking activities that they hope to get press coverage for. That's where my placement came in.

Though the office has one volunteer experienced in media relations, she's only able to come in a couple of hours a week. So I got a great opportunity to step in as the main office media coordinator for the 7 weeks during my placement. It was so exciting to be able to share all I had learnt about media relations during my degree with the Amnesty staff, and create materials that would allow them to write and send press releases with ease in the future.

I was able to get Amnesty some press coverage during my placement, so one of my main tasks was to create a local media contact list with the names of the Journalists I had contacted on it. I tried to make sure all the publications listed had the most relevant Journalist's email on there, as I had remembered we were told to always send straight to the Journalist in Media Relations. I also created media release templates so that any of the staff or volunteers could jump on to the computer and type up a press release without wondering how to structure it.

My supervisor also asked that I create guidelines for a media strategy so that others could implement a media strategy if they wished to do so. A lot of the information I put into this came from the Public Relations Planning and Evaluation unit. For example, I explained how important it was to have measurable goals and objectives to evaluate at the end of the time period so that they could determine the success of the strategy.

By the end of my placement I got the opportunity to guide two other volunteers and my supervisor through the materials I had created, which were in three folders- Media Guidelines, Media Contacts, and Media Releases (which included examples and templates). They were so grateful to have a system in place for issuing media releases, and I felt so proud when my supervisor asked if I would mind if they used the materials in Amnesty's other Australian offices. It seemed as though PR volunteers were quite rare at Amnesty, and that they really valued the fact that I was sharing the knowledge with them that I had gained from my studies in the last few years.

Of course being a student, a had a lot to learn as well during my placement. I often found myself googling things like 'the best ways to contact journalists' or searching my textbooks for practical information. My supervisor was also a great source of information and ideas, as even though he had not come from a PR background he'd had real world experience with media relations in similar organisations.

Though I was sad finish my placement at Amnesty, I'm trying not to think of it as goodbye. I'm planning to continue to volunteer there, because now I realise how much not-for-profit NGOs like Amnesty rely on volunteers to keep things going. And it is amazing to see how many people volunteer their time just because they truly want to help the world.

Until next time, Jolene x

Goodbye desk!.... (It's a little messy in this picture)