Learning Enterprise Internship Initiative

The World Patriarchal Maronite Foundation for Integral Development (WPF) in collaboration with Bank of Beirut launched an initiative to provide opportunity for Australian business students with an interest in Lebanon. The aim is to connect young university students with a banking and finance work place in Lebanon and with interns from Lebanon. Western Sydney University lead the pilot design and delivery of the program and this is the second report. The benefits of internship, according to academic literature, accrue to the university, to university students, to the industry or host firm(s). In addition, international internships have the extra component of improving intercultural competencies. The Bank of Beirut Internship program comprised of nine students and one academic for a period of four weeks in-country work coupled with four weeks in Australia. In addition, the students were also receiving training while in country outside their work hours (detailed in section 6). When summarised all up, the number of weeks that the students had committed to the internship is approximately twelve weeks. The second element of the internship program was that it was encapsulated in two different academic study units of 10 credit points value: Enterprise Internship Unit, a third year unit, and second was an Internship as part of Masters of Business Administration unit. In terms of the students, there was diversity of ages, backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, level of experience and universities. The students and the academic were all housed in USEK student dorm, worked in different divisions of the same bank, and had breakfast and travelled to and from work together. The planned and organized social, cultural and intervention experiences were vital elements in the internship program.