The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), in collaboration with a number of other organisations, has launched the Equality Internship Programme.

150 different internship opportunities with 75 of those set out specifically for young graduates who have a disability of some kind. That in a nutshell is what the programme is.

Conditions for taking part:

Only one or two;

• Firstly this is for graduates or people who have undergone further education and hold at least “an SCQF level 8+ qualification (equivalent to an HND, first degree, SVQ Level 4).”
• Secondly applicants must “be unemployed – either in the first 12 months of a benefit claim (pre-Work Programme) or 2 years+ (post-Work Programme), or unemployed and not claiming benefits (but must make a claim for benefits in order to apply for an opportunity)”

Answers to questions you’re probably wondering

The internships are paid thanks to funding from the Scottish Government. The interns will be paid £6.31/hour for a working week of 35 hours. The standard duration of the internships is 13 weeks although the total number of hours can be spread out over a longer period in certain cases.

Internships are spread out all over Scotland from Jedburgh in the Borders to Stornoway off the North-West coast, and in between you’ll find internships in such varied places as Duns, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Greenock, Leven, Dalkeith, Fife and Stirling.

What type of internships?

The truth is that the opportunities are pretty varied. They include things like marketing and communications, business development, marketing research, volunteer coordinator, magazine content coordinator, social media & web, to name but a few.

Various kinds of organisations are taking on interns including charities like PAMIS and RNIB. Then you’ve got the more sporty ones like Youth Football Scotland and indenpen-dance. And for those with a penchant for the great outdoors, you’ve got Instinctively Wild, an organisation whose slogan reads “reconnecting people through nature”.

If you are interested or know someone who might be, click here to visit the SCVO page. To read more about opportunties and the kind of assistance available to disabled job seekers, click here.