Internship 2026 · Sustainable Women Organization
Inside the Internship: Design and Fieldwork at Sustainable Women Organization
By Let's Talk Tech · August 2026 · 7 min read
The intern team at work with SWO staff in Bamenda.
Three Let's Talk Tech graduates spent seven days at Sustainable Women Organization. They learned CorelDRAW on day one, were in a village the next morning collecting data from a livelihood project, and finished the fortnight pressing their own designs onto T-shirts.
SWO works to put education, information, economic opportunity, resources, skills and decision-making power into the hands of women and adolescent girls. Its focus is on girls having a voice in the decisions that affect them. Ndema Phebe Manju, Essimbe Nora Alve and Chick Maria-Faith joined the organisation on 12 August 2026 under the supervision of Miss Precious.
What they did at SWO
3
Interns placed at SWO
7 days
12 to 21 August 2026
35
Women in the Santa livelihood project
8
Kinds of work they produced
3
Field activities they joined
CorelDRAW
The tool SWO designs in
Day one, in the design lab
Working through a design in the SWO lab.
Miss Stephanie took them into the designing laboratory and set them a task straight away: build a birthday flyer from three pictures of their own choosing. She walked them through it, corrected what they got wrong and showed them what makes a flyer worth looking at.
SWO designs in CorelDRAW, so CorelDRAW went onto their machines that morning. Their second task of the day was a flyer announcing to the organisation that SWO had new interns.
The next morning, out to Santa
A community session in the field.
On day two the group split. Part of the team went out to Santa, where SWO runs a project training women and building income for the community through poultry farming and maize production. Thirty-five women are beneficiaries of it.
They collected data while they were there, which was most of them meeting fieldwork for the first time, and filmed the outreach so SWO had something to put on social media. Back at the office the rest of the group carried on with CorelDRAW tasks, and one went out with Madam Calister to talk to girls about self-esteem and boldness and introduce the Her Voice Fund project.
“The work of SWO goes beyond technology and office activities. The organisation also works directly with communities.”
From the interns' report
A masterclass, then a business card
Going over a design with a colleague.
Mr Solomon ran a CorelDRAW session on day four covering how to build shapes and blend colours to land on the result you actually wanted. The practical task that came out of it was a business card.
That afternoon Phebe went with Miss Nadine to Foot Market to talk to young girls about goal setting and how having something to aim at keeps you focused. The rest carried on designing until four.
From the screen onto a T-shirt
A finished T-shirt, printed in the office.
On the last day Miss Stephanie set them to cutting stencils for heat pressing. Phebe and Faith cut the stencils and then pressed the designs onto T-shirts themselves, while Nora built a business flyer.
It is the step most design training never reaches. A flyer stays a file; a T-shirt is the design as a physical thing someone wears, and getting there means stencils, heat and a press that is unforgiving about alignment.
The dialogue at Cathedral Big Mankon
On day three they went to a community dialogue titled Deconstructing Negative Social Norms and Enhancing Knowledge on Gender-Based Violence. It was backed by the Her Voice Fund, SWO and other partners, and drew stakeholders from communities across Bamenda 2 and from headquarters, MINJEC among them.
Two of the interns sat in while the third stayed back to finish documenting the Santa outreach from the day before. They came away with SWO's mission and vision, the difference between equality and equity, how gender roles get built by a society rather than found in one, and why adolescent girls and boys need a say in decisions about their own health. They also learned that gender-based violence reaches men as well as women.
What they made for SWO
Across seven days the three of them produced birthday flyers, a welcome flyer for their own arrival, business cards, a business flyer, badges, stencils for heat pressing, printed T-shirts, and short videos the organisation asked for after the first week. They also collected field data at Santa and filmed the outreach for social media.
SWO marked World Humanitarian Day at Baptist Hospital, Finance Junction, with football, an egg race, a bag race and an exhibition the organisation used to explain its work and its interest in backing adolescent girls economically. Madam Honorene, the founder, met the group twice: once to ask how the first week had gone, and once at the end to ask what they had seen, what they had learned and what they would change.
Questions about this placement
What is Sustainable Women Organization?
A Bamenda organisation that empowers women and adolescent girls through education, information, economic opportunity, resources, skills and a place in decision-making. It runs community outreach, livelihood projects and awareness work, and campaigns on gender-based violence and the social norms behind it.
What did the interns actually produce?
Birthday flyers, a welcome flyer, business cards, a business flyer, badges, stencils for heat pressing and printed T-shirts, plus short videos for the organisation and video documentation of the Santa outreach. They also collected data in the field at Santa.
How do I join the next Let's Talk Tech cohort?
Get in touch with the Let's Talk Tech team through the contact page. Every cohort ends with a two-week placement inside a local organisation, like this one.
Let's Talk Tech Internship 2026
Read the other placements
Nine groups of Let's Talk Tech graduates spent two weeks inside local organisations in August 2026. Each group wrote up what they did.
With thanks
Thank you, Sustainable Women Organization
Our thanks to Sustainable Women Organization for opening its doors to three of our trainees, and to Madam Honorene, Miss Precious, Miss Stephanie and Mr Solomon for giving them real work and real responsibility rather than a seat in the corner. A placement only teaches anything when the host is willing to make room, answer questions and let people get things wrong on the way to getting them right. We are grateful they did.
