Welcome to my photo essay! I must admit this was a foreign concept until my colleague Shefali introduced me to it. When I decided to write a blog highlighting my experience at Social Lens, I realized that the best way to present my internship journey at Social Lens is through a series of pictures.
I am Hamza Chitalwalla, a 23-year-old business and entrepreneurship student from Mumbai. You’ll often find me working on ideas supported by social impact or absorbing information about social entrepreneurship startups in and around me.
A side hustle I promote at social gatherings is my podcast “OutoftheHood with Hamza”. I talk about the struggles, experiences, and success stories of people around me and share my thoughts on self-help books and tools for self-development.
During my undergraduate program, we had a module on Social Entrepreneurship. I was very drawn to the impact created by organizations in the sector and I started looking for opportunities that would provide me with some hands-on experience in working with nonprofits and sustainable start-ups.
I reached out to my friend Alefiya, a Senior Analyst at Social Lens, and discussed how could I contribute to the organization. Fortunately, I bagged the internship and I can confidently say that it was a great decision!
The 3 months of working at Social Lens have taught me so much!
During my last month of internship with Social Lens, I worked remotely from Karnataka. I spent my mornings surfing and my afternoons on zoom calls. It was my first solo trip and it was challenging but I’m so grateful to have found another hidden passion!
I still remember my first day at Social Lens was back in January. I was recruited to work on one particular program. Work for me started with a zoom call on “Big Data” but it seemed more like “Big Problems” to me.
Vijaya Balaji, our CEO was so quick to grasp my abilities and directed me to work on communications and a podcast for Social Lens.
I think my biggest learning from this internship was probably in the first week itself. “Sometimes you just have to stay on course till the right opportunity finds you”
