Sabrina Wilson
By Zoë Eitel
When work and school started moving remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sabrina Wilson figured that this was her opportunity to gain work experience she never would have gotten the chance to otherwise. So, Sabrina decided to take an internship with her father’s solar power company, Solarius Energy, and moved to the Philippines.
As part of her communications internship, Sabrina was able to attend client meetings, observe installations happening in the field, assist the sales team and work on marketing strategies for the company. Because Facebook is so popular in the Philippines, Sabrina focused a lot on Facebook advertising and marketing techniques in collaboration with the company’s distribution partner Alpha-ESS based in China.
Communications Coordinator at Solarius Energy
Student/Congressional Intern at Provincial Capitol in Isabela
BA International Studies 2018
“This was a great learning experience for me as I gained a lot of knowledge from their marketing team on the ways renewable energy can appeal to a client base,” she says.
She worked with Solarius Energy for three months, and her work there helped her develop the connections needed for her next opportunity.
“Through my meetings, I became acquainted with government officials in the province of Isabela who were looking into solar energy for government and personal installations,” Sabrina says. “This is when I had discussed my trajectory and interest in humanitarian work and was offered an internship for the local government in Isabela.”
“A lot of the subject matter I learned in my International Studies classes became useful in having a better understanding of the work I was doing and the questions I could ask to learn more. This made a huge difference in my classes too since I was actually able to receive first hand experience in the topics I was researching.”
For her second internship in the Philippines, Sabrina assisted in resource distribution under a Congressman and was able to explore her program ideas with the other government departments.
Sabrina’s first project was to help distribute 27,000 boxes of Lola Remedios food supplements throughout different municipalities as part of a goal to develop a healthier Isabela during the pandemic. The team labeled and distributed all of the boxes within two weeks, and organized ceremonial events for the Congressman’s office.
“The coordination and efficiency needed for this to happen was something I hadn’t seen before,” Sabrina says.
In addition to the goods distribution, Sabrina met with other departments she was interested in, including the Women and Children’s Protection Center and the Lingap Center.
“Both of these centers are places where women and children coming from abusive situations can be protected while their cases are worked on,” Sabrina says. “The employees of the centers were extremely welcoming and briefed me on all of the services they provide in the center and what they would need from our office.”
She also helped the Department of Social Welfare organize a donation center for National Women’s Month that provided supplies to the children who were doing their schooling from the centers.
