23 June 2010
The United Nations Regional Information Centre (UNRIC) for Western Europe, the United Nations Association (UNA) of Italy, The Italian Society for International Organization (SIOI), and the Vicenza-based Academic Training Center for Linguistic Mediators recently joined forces to host a training seminar for Italian university students. Graduate students from the Academic Training Institute for Linguistic Mediators’ Master’s programme in Linguistic Mediation and from SIOI’s Master’s programme in International Careers participated in the two-day lecture series.
President Giuliana Schiavi with UNRIC Desk Officer Fabio Graziosi
Master’s students from these two distinct programmes are an important market for United Nations recruitment efforts.
The training seminar included a presentation on UN public information activities, focusing on UNRIC communication with national civil society in Italy. Students from both the English and the German linguistic university sections attended, receiving UN publications in English along with corresponding international translations indicative of the UN’s work. UNRIC also discussed proposals for the first-ever Italian translation of “The United Nations today.”
Students showed a strong interest in employment opportunities within the UN system, and job prospects were the main focus of the question and answer session that followed the presentations.
In addition, UNA developed the Distance Internship Programme with the Vincenza-based language institute. UNA’s internship programme is becoming increasingly popular with local students, providing the UN with a constant stream of qualified applicants and job candidates. Additionally, the internship programme allows UNRIC’s Italian branch to regularly and affordably post high-quality translations of UN documents to the national webpage. Because of this strategic collaboration, the UNRIC website is currently the richest web resource on UN information in Italian.