Placements at Warm Heart Thailand

Warm Heart is too small to manage interns who expect to make coffee or just "shadow" staff. If you aren't ready to be a real member of a professional staff, you're not ready to be a Warm Heart intern. Interns must be willing to commit for at least two months. All interns are assigned to a specific project. Below are a number of projects that are currently on the drawing board. If you do not find a project that fits your skills, please contact Global PACT to discuss alternatives.

Northern Thai NGO Data Collection Project
There does not exist a single, integrated, updated and easily updateable, searchable database of all of the many scattered and overlapping NGOs serving northern Thailand. Warm Heart seeks on individual with excellent research skills to (1) work with a member of the senior team to create a master data collection survey; (2) seek out and identify every possible NGO in northern Thailand, starting with Chiang Mai Province; and (3) survey each organization.

Requirements: Knowledge of internet, print source, telephone and interpersonal research techniques and well as tremendous ingenuity and great interpersonal skills. Individual must be extremely organized; previous experience with survey design and research a plus, but not a requirement. Ability to see the big picture, work without close supervision and meet tight deadlines is critical. Individual must be a self-starter with a strong work ethic and sense of responsibility, good teamwork and communications skills, and an ability to function effectively in a diverse work place under conditions of scarcity.

Basic Access Database Design Project
Warm Heart is collecting data on all of the NGOs serving northern Thailand – contact info, who the organizations serve, what services they provide, with whom they are affiliated internationally and locally, what their major projects are, etc. – none of which is readily available at present. To make this information easy to access, search and update, Warm Heart seeks an individual to design and build a simple Microsoft Access database with a very user-friendly backend that will permit staff interns to update data easily. In an ideal world, this database will be built internet-ready or already networked.

Requirements: Note: Warm Heart will not say no to individuals with high end coding, web design and db development skills. This project could be something special and we have several high end projects in the safe. But this project does not require a $100/hr coder.) Basic working knowledge of Microsoft Access and previous experience creating reasonably complicated databases. As the project description suggests, the database will ultimately include several hundred organizations, require at least eight or nine important tables (contact info, who served, what services provided, who affiliated with, etc.) and need to be able to handle multiple term queries. Ideally, the individual will be able to make the db internet ready.

eNewsletter and PR Materials Write/Editor
Warm Heart seeks an individual with the creative, media and writing skills to produce a monthly e-newsletter and related multi-media materials for donors and the Warm Heart global “family”. The individual will be responsible for the production of two weekly posts in the Warm Heart blog, letters and articles for the university and hometown papers of American team members, special announcements to targeted audiences, etc., as required.

Requirements: This position requires an individual who is familiar with email, internet and print communications and PR. The individual must have the creativity of a PR account manager and a marketing campaign producer, and the writing skills of a journalist. Ability to see the big picture, work without close supervision and meet tight deadlines is critical. Individual must be a self-starter with a strong work ethic and sense of responsibility. Good teamwork and communications skills, and an ability to function effectively in a diverse work place are essential.

Orientation Materials Development Project
Warm Heart hosts as many has hosted more than forty interns and coops in the past year, but we still do not have a completely satisfactory set of orientation materials. Warm Heart seeks to develop three distinct online and downloadable documents: (1) Pre-arrival – everything you need to know before leaving from visas and health to clothing and pick ups; (2) First days survival guide – all of the basics about Phrao and Chiang Mai from staff phone numbers and a simple map of downtown to where to buy what; and (3) the Warm Heart fun book – the best, most up-to-date compendium possible of everything the Warm Heart farang have found to do on weekends and blue days. Project includes conceptualization, research, writing, photography, layout and final editioning.

Requirements: Highly desirable, but not required, individuals with previous human resources or resident life experience. Individual most have excellent interpersonal and interviewing skills for data collection, as well as excellent writing skills. Ability to meet tight deadlines is critical. Individual must be a self-starter with a strong work ethic and sense of responsibility.

Phrao District Microenterprise Group Product and Production Capacity Inventory Project
Sales of the Warm Heart Microenterprise Project are growing rapidly and it is critical that we add new partner producer coops. We know from many conversations that many projects have been conducted over the past years to attempt to create small producer groups. By and large, however, these efforts have been undertaken with no previous market research and without any attention to marketing and sales planning. Rather, they have focused exclusively on providing skills training and equipment (instruction in sewing and sewing machines, for example) to groups then expected to proceed on their own. We suspect, but we do not have the data to confirm, that many of these projects have failed or are producing far below capacity and not delivering the intended developmental kick. Likewise, we suspect, but we do not have the data to confirm, that there is substantial, underutilized production capacity in Phrao District, again of unknown variety. Before we go even consider developing new organizations, we require an accurate picture of what capacity already exists and if properly supported might do the job. Warm Heart Microenterprise Project therefore seeks a researcher to create a survey tool with which to collect systematic data on all defunct and/or still functioning project-funded microenterprise groups. The deliverables include (1) a standard microenterprise business survey; (2)  data for all such groups that includes full contact info, size, skill sets, products, production and sales measures, profit and loss estimates, and open-ended interview data on group identified reasons for success/failure; (3) a report that summarizes basic findings.

Requirements: Knowledge of internet, print source, and interpersonal research techniques and well as tremendous ingenuity and great interpersonal skills. Individual must be extremely organized; previous experience with survey design and research a plus, but not a requirement. Background/course work in business and/or community development a plus, but also not a requirement. Ability to see the big picture, work without close supervision and meet tight deadlines is critical. Individual must be a self-starter with a strong work ethic and sense of responsibility. Good teamwork and communications skills, and an ability to function effectively in a diverse work place are essential, since most of the time this individual will work exclusively with Thai staff and in Thai villages.

American Business Inventory Project
Warm Heart needs donations of money and items ranging from old computers to a used truck. One of the best potential sources of such donations is American companies doing business in Chiang Mai. In order to develop a real strategy for reaching out to them, however, we need to know who they are, where they are and what they do. Warm Heart seeks on individual with excellent research skills to (1) work with a member of the senior team to create a master business data collection instrument and (2) seek out and identify every American business in northern Thailand, starting Chiang Mai City and Province.

Requirements: Knowledge of internet, print source, telephone and interpersonal research techniques and well as tremendous ingenuity and great interpersonal skills. Individual must be extremely organized; previous experience with survey design and research a plus, but not a requirement. Ability to see the big picture, work without close supervision and meet tight deadlines is critical. Individual must be a self-starter with a strong work ethic and sense of responsibility. Good teamwork and communications skills, and an ability to function effectively in a diverse work place are essential.