Homeless Kiwi UN intern admits publicity stunt in interview with 'The Intercept'

David Hyde. Photo / Supplied

A young unpaid Kiwi intern at the United Nations who caused an uproar after he was reportedly living in a tent has admitted to arranging a publicity stunt.

David Hyde, 22, was offered somewhere to stay after Swiss newspaper Tribune de Geneve photographed him in his suit in front of the tent he was camping in on the shores of Lake Geneva.

Today Mr Hyde told The Intercept website he and his girlfriend had planned ahead to alert media to his living arrangement.

"I looked up some studios and room shares to see the sorts of prices I would be paying in Geneva and it was clear that it would be too expensive for me," Mr Hyde told The Intercept.

"I needed a solution. The answer was fairly simple. I would live in a tent."

He said doing so allowed him to "hit two birds with one stone".

With limited funds, the tent was a cheap way to live in Geneva. And he said he wanted to raise awareness about the plight of unpaid interns.

"And so I arranged for my situation to be leaked to the media. The intention was to spark a small discussion in Geneva on intern rights and get the media reporting on the issue. However, the response was more than I could have ever planned for or expected," he added.

"It is somewhat degrading spending hours trying your best to convince people to let you work for them for free. For six months. In some of the most expensive cities in the world."

Mr Hyde said he and others believed unpaid internships were inherently unjust but such internships had continued after falling "through the cracks in our moral codes and legal systems".

The 22-year-old's mother Vicki Hyde earlier this week said David was a "typical Kiwi kid" who wasn't afraid to rough it.

Mrs Hyde and her husband Peter did not know their son was living in a tent, until he sent them a link to the Tribune de Geneve story.

"We were shocked in one way in that when he mentioned he was going to get a job with the UN we thought it would be a paid one and we thought it would be a really good thing for him to do and really good experience. We were a bit dismayed to find it was unpaid, and of course that he's actually living in a tent to make ends meet."

She would have expected the UN "to be up on issues of equity and non-exploitation", she said.