Madeira Island is a great example for international business students. Lycée CCI Gard de Nimes is a secondary business school from France that recently visited us for a second time. Six students from the school are attending a 4-week internship on our beautiful island. In addition, the teachers of Lycée CCI Gard de Nimes are using this opportunity to attend different job shadowing projects.
Our ARTE.M Association, in partnership with the Direção Regional De Juventude, is the host of this project. The students are accommodated in Pousada de Juventude, and provided with different internship possibilities, including the Art Center Caravel, the 3D Museum, the Photography Museum etc.
The aim of such partnership is to show and non-formally educate the students on how business/tourism sector functions on the island, improve their language skills, and finally improve their employability. At the same time, the students bring valuable knowledge and information from which our community can also benefit.
During the whole process, the students have an opportunity to visit various places on Madeira Island. One of the events was a Funchal city tour, where the teachers through job shadowing observed how our tourism sector functions. Our guests had a chance to visit the most important historic and cultural places in Funchal, including the murals of our most eminent artist Marcos Milewski.
We asked the interns what their expectations and duties are…
Juliana and Assaad are interns in a local hotel, which positively surprised them a lot. Almost from the beginning of the project they were trusted to use the reservation software, which also shows the Portuguese openness and friendliness. In general, they shared with us, most of their expectations were met.
Elisa, the intern at the 3D Museum in Funchal, shared that she loves the fact that she can improve her English, as well as the relationship with international visitors.
Two other students – Lara and Julian who are completing their internship at the Photography Museum, shared with us that this internship helps them to improve their English and Portuguese language, as well as the museum-related reception skills. They are also very grateful to their tutor for teaching them all the tips regarding this profession.
On the other hand, Vincent, who is completing his internship at Art Center Caravel, shared with us that he is very happy to be part the international team where he needs to speak few languages. He also shared that this internship is cruical for improving his English language, as well as for learning gallery-related communication and organization skills.
However, this is just the beginning of our partnership with Lycée CCI Gard de Nimes, and many future projects are being planned. Both of our communities, Madeira and Nimes, can benefit from such cooperation, and if you wish to take a part in it, do not hesitate to contact us! ARTE.M team
Funchal, 2022