Aidsource

Here’s a neat little resource to get some useful insights into the working world of aid and development. Aidsource is a social network set up by and for development workers, specifically by the bloggers who bring us Blood and Milk, The Shotgun Shack, and the former blogger at Tales from the Hood.  

There are a bunch of groups – below are some of those I have enjoyed perusing.

Perhaps the most useful page for students is the Students and Educators page. From here you can read views on development studies written by students as well as by educators, and access review pages of various graduate programmes (mostly in the US for now but the network is still young). The Discussions is very good – currently there’s a discussion about best practices in internships. Some of you that have done internships might want to share your views here.

The Jobs group – you have to be a member to view this one, so that people will feel a bit freer to name and shame bad employers. It’s really easy to join the network though (and you can personalise your page). There’s also a section in the Jobs group to post opportunities, including internships.

Media & Global Development – I started my own discussion here about combining development work and journalism and I got some useful tips and links.

There’s a Making Aid Marketing Better group – groups like these are really interesting for students, as we get to see what issues are current for workers in the field and how stuff we’re learning about in the classroom is actually real. Here’s a funny/sad post about Kony 2012.

There is a group called Collective Wisdom where people post questions about anything and everything in the development world, or look for hook-ups in countries they’re going to work in. Here is an interesting post called a Day in the Life – what do development workers actually do all day? Here’s another one questioning if writing critically online might affect your employability.