JOIN USMeet helps seniors come out of retirement
Internships are not only for college students. An initiative by CAVEO, a senior citizens’ care service and BHIVE, a co-working space in the city, are giving senior citizens the opportunity to get out of retirement and work.
The programme, in which companies and senior citizens took part, was held on Tuesday as part of the Art Bengaluru festival in Oakwood Premier Prestige, UB City. In the morning session, corporates and start-ups discussed with the organisers what internships they could provide.
The afternoon session was attended by 13 senior citizens. They had one-on-one interactions with people from the CAVEO team to understand what previous experience they had and what kind of job profile they were looking for.
The initiative was inspired by the Hollywood movie ‘The Intern’ in which the character played by Robert De Niro takes up an internship years after retirement. Clips from the movie were screened at the session to inspire the participants.
“When they walked in they looked nervous and doubtful about whether they would be able to do this. But after the discussions and watching the clips from the movie, they became more confident and even excited,” said Devanshi Seth, who runs CAVEO.
17 internships
They have already got 17 internships and will be matching the job profiles to the right candidates over the week. Most of them are for content writing while some are for market analysis, accounting and for the post of guest lecturers. Talking about why companies would want senior interns, Seth, said, “For corporates, these interns have years of experience to offer.
They will be able to add value the company’s work by providing a different perspective. On the other hand, start-ups often don’t have the resources to hire full-time employees. If they hire senior interns on a short-term pay-per-day basis, they can get good quality work.” Besides those who attended the session, they have received queries from about 30 more people.
BHIVE is offering two free seats for senior citizens in each of their centres to access their co-working space. Besides, the companies working from the space will have access to the expertise of the senior interns.