Citizens Advice recruit Derby interns

Citizens Advice Mid Mercia has recently recruited two new interns to help with its digital marketing, thanks to new support and funding from our Productivity through Innovation programme.

 

The Productivity through Innovation programme, which has been running since 2019, enables SMEs in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire to access a suite of funding, services and support to improve their productivity and market competitiveness. Our latest offer under this scheme enables companies to employ an undergraduate student intern free for 80 hours, as well as get £1000 towards the cost of a employing a graduate intern for 400 hours. We can also provide free recruitment support to help companies find the right people.

Citizens Advice Mid Mercia are making the most of this opportunity and have already recruited two new interns. Business management and marketing graduate, Hajra Shakoor, will be undertaking a 400-hour internship at the organisation, acting as a temporary Digital Marketing Coordinator. Hajra's primary focus will be to help implement a new digital marketing and fundraising programme, which will include coming up with innovative ways for the charity to improve its digital presence and engage with people online.

In addition, undergraduate computer science student, Ramandip Singh, has been recruited to help review the Citizens Advice Mid Mercia website, including looking at the user experience, quality of content and search engine performance. Ramandip will then make recommendations for how to improve it.

By bringing these new skills into the organisation, the charity hopes to be able to promote its work more effectively and increase donations. These much-needed funds will enable it to help even more people, by providing free, accredited information and advice, support with a range of health-related issues, as well as projects for specific groups of people, such as carers or those that are homeless.

“We’re delighted to have these new interns on board. They will be contributing to vital marketing and fundraising work for our charity.

Many people do not know that Citizens Advice Mid Mercia is an independent charity, and that we do not receive any unrestricted funding from our local councils towards the cost of providing our general advice service. With more people than ever calling our telephone Advice Line in need of our support, we need to look to grow awareness of our charitable status, and to ask those who feel able to support us to donate.

The process of applying for these funds through the University has been so smooth that we’ve recommended the scheme to other Citizens Advice branches, and would be happy to recommend it to other charities. We hope to develop a longer-term relationship with the University, who are clearly a source of new talent, funding and expertise.”

— David Symcox, CEO at Citizens Advice Mid Mercia

Citizens Advice Mid Mercia serves the communities of Derby city, South Derbyshire, East Staffordshire, Tamworth and the surrounding areas.