Starter Kit. Idea 374 of 500. Cluster 18
Second-generation internships at home, 6 weeks, arranged with firms that want the connection
The mechanism, from the book
1.5 million people abroad who know how rich countries work, and who send home money and little else.
The first step
Ask the managers of five firms at home whether they would host a second-generation intern for 6 weeks in return for a fee covering supervision, and what work they would give. Then offer those placements to 20 Sri Lankan families abroad through a youth group or a Saturday school. One firm's yes and one family's deposit is the proof.
- Who pays first
- Sri Lankan parents abroad who want their university-age child to work at home for a summer and will pay for a supervised, arranged placement.
- What leaves today
- The second generation's skills and future networks go entirely to their new countries; a paid internship builds their first working link to the island.
Ask first
- Inland Revenue Department. Ask how a placement fee paid to a host firm is treated for tax.
Check before you spend
The visa a visiting intern needs to train here, the firm's supervision plan, insurance, and parents' consent for interns under eighteen.
Find out these three numbers
- What fee would a host firm want to supervise an intern?
- What would parents abroad pay for six weeks?
- Which work would each firm give an intern?
A comparison from the book
Australia's New Colombo Plan. Chapter Sixteen
"Australia now runs a New Colombo Plan in the other direction, sending its own"
Placements that run the other way build ties that both sides keep using.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.