Ng Wen Dis is set to graduate this year from UWA with a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Marketing and Master of Marketing degrees, and recently undertook a McCusker Centre for Citizenship internship with Council on the Ageing WA (COTA WA) as part of her postgrad course.
“Due to COVID, I missed the opportunity to gain practical experience during my undergraduate studies. With what I have learnt throughout my time at uni, I wanted to find out how I could contribute to an organisation that works for the benefit of the community,” Wen Dis said.
Interning with COTA WA, Wen Dis assisted with a project to consult with older Western Australians about their preferred ways of communicating and was nominated by her supervisor for the McCusker Centre for Citizenship Outstanding Intern Award for her efforts.
“COTA recognised a significant gap in understanding of how seniors wish to engage with information and services. Especially after COVID-19, seniors have felt more isolated; the objective of the project is to obtain valuable insights into how seniors like to receive information, and the findings will be sent to organisations and government,” Wen Dis said.
Chris Jeffery, Chief Policy Officer for COTA WA, said that Wen Dis’ contribution would have been outstanding for a staff member, and was exceptional for an intern.
“Wen Dis’ role involved developing, distributing, and analysing a survey. She quickly demonstrated her ability to grasp complex issues, and she required minimal coaching to adopt a communication style suitable for our target cohort,” Mr Jeffery said.
“The survey featured a variety of response types and provided us with a rich source of information. The success of the survey was remarkable - typically, our surveys receive around 150 responses, with 300 being considered excellent. Wen Dis' survey garnered over 600 responses, an achievement largely attributable to her thoughtful presentation and the user-friendly format she developed.
“Wen Dis also translated the survey into Chinese, significantly broadening our reach to a demographic that has been traditionally challenging to engage, as well as developing a hard copy version of the survey for distribution at seminars, expos, and to individual Chinese speakers, further enhancing our outreach efforts,” he said.
Wen Dis said that she hadn’t expected to be nominated for the Award and was grateful to have her efforts recognised.
“I hope the work I undertook for this project continues to help COTA WA and the community.
“I would definitely recommend McCusker Centre internships to other students. It was not just an internship, through the seminars I learnt a lot about equality. The follow up calls are very helpful, the journals allowed me to reflect and think about the entire internship process.
“Overall, it motivated me, I will keep challenging myself and I want to do more to contribute to the community.”