This blog post covers the fourth week of my LiA in New Zealand, working with YANZ to spotlight young creatives and help them get ahead in their careers!
This week was more focused on laptop-based work, as we were preparing for a major event the following week: Community Adventure Day at an Auckland high school. Much of our time went into creating promotional and informational materials, both for the event itself and for YANZ to use in future outreach.
My manager, Chloe, was working on a poster that demonstrated the different ways young people can get involved with YANZ, no matter their age, creative interests, or level of experience. The aim was to make YANZ’s pathways feel clear, accessible, and inviting — showing that there is no single way to be part of the organisation, whether through performing, attending events, joining programmes, or supporting creative projects behind the scenes.
I worked on business cards, which was a new challenge for me as someone who is less familiar with design. It pushed me to think about how much communication happens visually and how YANZ can appeal to a certain audience through this marketing collateral (in this case, high school students). Although it was a more practical task, it helped me understand how non-profit communications often rely on creating materials that are both functional and aligned with the organisation’s personality.
The business card I made is below; I look forward to bringing these to the event next week and reporitng on that here on the Laidlaw Scholars Network later on!
Another thing I worked on this week was a newsletter containing further reflections on the Open Mic we held two weeks ago. Unlike the previous thank-you newsletter, this piece was more personal and led by my own voice, allowing me to reflect on the mural, the atmosphere of the event, and what it revealed about youth creativity, participation, and belonging.
A lot of work went into shaping this piece, especially as I adapted feedback from both of my managers. This process helped me understand how much collaboration sits behind strong communications work. I had to think carefully about tone, structure, and purpose: how to write something reflective without making it too personal, how to represent the event authentically, and how to connect my observations back to YANZ’s wider mission. Because of my extensive experience writing academic essays at university, I initially found it challenging to adjust my writing style for this piece. I realised that I had a tendency to use multiple synonyms to repeat similar ideas, which can work in academic writing but made the newsletter feel heavier and less direct than it needed to be.
This week, we also had a mid-internship check-in, which was very helpful for reflecting on where I was in the placement and clarifying the direction of my work for the remaining weeks. It gave me the chance to review what I had already contributed, understand which projects were most useful to YANZ, and discuss where my time and skills could have the greatest impact next. The more, the merrier!