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"My daughter got her job because she was willing to work as an unpaid intern"

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This article was written by a reader in response to the column: How unpaid internships are driving inequality.

Thank you for a very informative article as usual. While I fully agree with your respective, I've also considered the other side.

Being a single parent of an unemployable 19-year-old daughter with a severe learning disability, made me think outside of the box not so long ago. Before going into any detail, here is a bit of background about my daughter.

She was diagnosed with severe dyslexia at the age of eight.

I enrolled her in Con Amore school, which she attended at a stage where the school believed it was time for her to move on, because she was too advanced for the school she was in.

At the age of 12, she was transferred to another school in Benoni, also a school for children with severe learning disabilities.

We had to provide proof that she is dyslexic. We supplied the school with a report from the previous school as well as the medical report from a speech therapist. She did not fail a grade, until at the end of grade nine.

We have attended all parents evenings, but to my horror, discovered during the 3rd term exams that the school did not know that my daughter was dyslexic. Maths was her downfall during the final exams, but all her other subjects were between 45–85%. She was not allowed to redo grade nine or be advanced to grade ten.

Referring back to your article, I agree that companies that offer unpaid internships might be seen as driving inequality, and I believe most of them are. After 10 months at home, alone during the day, none of my daughter's job applications were successful.

She became more depressed by the day, feeling that she had nothing to contribute to society. In desperation, we printed 100 CVs and included a short letter about my daughter, her ambitions in life and her willingness to accept an unpaid internship.

We spent evenings and weekends delivering her CV to the managers from every retail store, beauty shop, hair dresser and pet shop. Seeing that her passion is in the beauty industry, we were hopeful that she would get a reply from either a hairdresser or beauty shop.

She completed a nail course at the end of April 2015. But for weeks we still had no response.

There was not one company out of a hundred that was interested in offering another person a job without having to pay them. Maybe the store owners were afraid that there would be a catch.

But there was no catch.

She just wanted an opportunity to gain some work experience and to be exposed to the working environment.

Weeks later, she was offered employment based on her enthusiasm and willingness to work for no remuneration. The company offered her a small salary (R2500 per month), to work for 195 hours a month in an industry that is not the beauty industry.

But for her, it’s a dream come true.

She is employed, earns a small salary, but most of all, she has a sense of worth and is gaining the work experience she has craved for.

I believe my daughter got the job, because she was willing to work as an unpaid intern.

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