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A podcast about international social work. Made by SocNet98, an European network of 18 universities that graduates students in social work. In this podcast you can listen to a broad specter of topics that is all connected to social work in an international perspective.
[SPEAKER_05]: [Automatic captions by Autotekst using OpenAI Whisper V3. May contain recognition errors.]
Welcome
to The Social Pod, a podcast brought to you by SockNet98, a network of
[SPEAKER_05]: universities sharing the common interest for social work in an
international perspective. In our episodes, you will hear from
[SPEAKER_05]: students around the world studying social work and interviews and
lectures from our International University Weeks.
[SPEAKER_03]: So welcome to The Social Pod. Right now we are sitting in Bremen in
Germany and we are just finishing up the second day of our coordinators
[SPEAKER_03]: meeting. Each fall we have a coordinators meeting where all the
coordinators from the 17 different European universities get
[SPEAKER_03]: together and we plan on the international university weeks that is
going to happen every spring. It happens four places throughout Europe
[SPEAKER_03]: and this time it's going to be from the 20th to 24th of April and the
destinations will be Finland, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. My
[SPEAKER_03]: name is Steinar Wikold. I'm the host of this podcast. And together with
me, we have one coordinator from each of the four different
[SPEAKER_03]: international university weeks. So first, let's have a round of
introduction. And the first is, let's go to Hasselt in Belgium. Hi
[SPEAKER_01]: there. Hello, my name is Ken Sandman. I'm from Hasselt, Belgium. And I'm
a lecturer in the University of Applied Sciences of PXL. Yeah, and
[SPEAKER_03]: you're one of the hosting universities. Let's go to the next one. Should
we go to Jena, Germany? Hi Steinar, my name is Frederik van Harbel. I'm
[SPEAKER_04]: professor of law at the Faculty of Social Work at the University of
Applied Sciences in Jena, Germany. Second or third place that we're
[SPEAKER_03]: going to have in International University Week is Finland. So my name is
Sari and I'm Sari Höyla from HUMAC University of Applied Sciences. And
[SPEAKER_00]: HUMAC is National Wide University of Applied Sciences. But in this time
we are hosting that University Week in Helsinki. Yeah. So that is the
[SPEAKER_03]: northernmost place for the International University Week. Yeah, but
it's almost the southeast place in Finland. That's a good point. Should
[SPEAKER_03]: we move further down west and southwest and then we get to the
Netherlands and Groningen? Yes, hello. My name is Sergei Outman,
[SPEAKER_02]: representing Hansen University of Applied Sciences from Groningen. I
am the coordinator over there for internationalization for the social
[SPEAKER_02]: academy, and I'm also a lecturer and researcher. Yeah, thank you. So
what we're going to talk a little bit about during this episode is just an
[SPEAKER_03]: introduction to the different kind of themes that we have in
International Universe Week. So each host, so now you listen to the four
[SPEAKER_03]: hosts, the four different places it's going to happen in the same week at
the same time. These hosts or these universities, they have chosen
[SPEAKER_03]: different themes for their week. So first we're going to listen to, to go
to Belgium to Ken and can you tell us a little bit about the topic that you
[SPEAKER_03]: have chosen for your International Universe Week? Yes, the topic is
making change work. Social workers are human rights professionals and
[SPEAKER_01]: we strive for sustainable, just society in which no one is left behind
and that's a difficult task to do. But we've got a unique position as a
[SPEAKER_01]: social worker, as a human rights professional, because we have a
connection with people's everyday lives. So as a social worker, we see
[SPEAKER_01]: things in the lives of people and we encounter structural problems as
well. This week, the International University Week, we will explore
[SPEAKER_01]: the important role of social workers in addressing structural issues
in a broad scope. In Flanders, we use the term politicizing work to
[SPEAKER_01]: address problems transcending the individual. Yeah, we'll look into
this topic and we'll explore different ways in which we can practice it
[SPEAKER_01]: and put it into practice on a daily basis. Yeah, thank you. Are we talking
about the topic now? So, each of the lecturers that is joining the
[SPEAKER_03]: students will then have a workshop or lecture within this topic, so
yeah. within this topic, but it's a process. Social work, like I said,
[SPEAKER_01]: takes place in everyday life, so it's about building relationships
with people, it's about connecting people to society, it's about being
[SPEAKER_01]: critical and looking in a critical way to problems that exist. Where are
inequalities based on structural problems? So the topics of the
[SPEAKER_01]: workshops will be linked to that as well. And the field visits, we're
going to organize a lot of field visits, will be within this topic as
[SPEAKER_01]: well. So it's within the process logic of social work as well, but with a
focus on politicizing work. Yeah, you're talking about field visits,
[SPEAKER_03]: so each international university week, one part of the week is going out
into the field. Can you mention a couple of places that we might be
[SPEAKER_03]: visiting? Or is it maybe not ready yet? It's under construction, but
there will be diversity of practices linked to sustainable practices,
[SPEAKER_01]: like there will be an action against some nature reserve that was going
to disappear, which we will present, and social workers took some
[SPEAKER_01]: action as well. But also local organizations will present their daily
practice and then connect it to politicizing work as well. So there are
[SPEAKER_01]: going to be centers for public welfare will be visited. There will be a
connection to teams, interdisciplinary teams who work with homeless
[SPEAKER_01]: people on the street. So there will be a whole variety of field visits,
which we will organize for the students to learn about this topic. Yeah,
[SPEAKER_03]: that sounds very interesting. Thank you so much. And if you choose to go
to Germany to Jena, Fredrik, what is the topic going to be? The topic will
[SPEAKER_04]: be democracy and human rights and we'll talk about the rise of
right-wing populism and human rights backlash across Europe but also
[SPEAKER_04]: worldwide, something we observed since a couple of years. There are
several buzzwords used for this development. Democratic
[SPEAKER_04]: backsliding, rule of law crisis, shrinking spaces of civil society, or
also human rights defenders in the defense. And we want to understand
[SPEAKER_04]: this. those phenomena. We want also to look into the root causes for
that. Maybe those lie in the field of social justice, lack of social
[SPEAKER_04]: justice, of inequalities. But maybe most importantly, we want to talk
about what's the role of social work in there? What should social
[SPEAKER_04]: workers do about it? How should they defend democracy and human rights,
especially rights of minorities, as we all work in some sense or the
[SPEAKER_04]: other with minorities? So those tendencies have to worry all of us. And
we want to really dig deep into this topic, into those developments, and
[SPEAKER_04]: especially in ideas from across Europe, how to tackle those
developments. You also shared with us a couple of the field visits just
[SPEAKER_03]: in the meeting. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, the
field visits, there are already some which are already organized or
[SPEAKER_04]: fixed. One is to the European Youth Education Exchange Center. It's
located in Weimar, which is only 50 minutes from Jena, and it's a train
[SPEAKER_04]: ride. Another one is to an anti-discrimination network. Then there's
an organization which works on the prevention of extremism. It visits
[SPEAKER_04]: schools and tries to identify if there are any tendencies among
students who are at risk to drift a bit apart into this direction and what
[SPEAKER_04]: to do about it. Those are field visits which are planned but there will
yet to be some more and they will all relate very closely to the topic. The
[SPEAKER_03]: city of Jena, I never heard about it until I met you. Can you tell just a
little bit about it? Is it like a huge city, small city, east, west? It's
[SPEAKER_04]: for sure, it's east. It's in the former GDR, so in East Germany. It's an
average-sized city and has around 100,000 inhabitants. Lots of
[SPEAKER_04]: students, also lots of bars, therefore. Like 20,000 students out of the
1,000 inhabitants. That's quite a lot. One out of five is a student.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, definitely. And so the infrastructure is quite nice for
students. The surroundings are really nice, we have some beautiful
[SPEAKER_04]: mountains, a nice river where we also plan to have some outdoor activity
on, a boating experience which you can sign up for. Yeah, it's actually
[SPEAKER_04]: located in a very nice place. And also what's also nice about Jena is that
it's close to Weimar, as I said before, as well as Erfurt, another big
[SPEAKER_04]: medieval city, which owns also only like half an hour train ride from
Jena. But what I also have to say is we didn't choose the topic out of the
[SPEAKER_04]: blue because Jena is also located in a region of Germany which is very
affected by right-wing populism, right-wing tendencies. So this
[SPEAKER_04]: doesn't affect so much the city. You will most likely not encounter
anybody there. who at least shows those tendencies. But in the region,
[SPEAKER_04]: there's about a third of the voters vote for the right wing. So it's among
the highest in Germany. Interesting. Should we move over to Finland?
[SPEAKER_03]: Going to Helsinki. Okay. Yeah, what is the theme that you have chosen for
the week? So we have chosen the theme Perspectives and Tools for
[SPEAKER_00]: Community Work and Promoting Agency. And I need to say that at HUMAG we
have a really brilliant team who is planning and preparing this
[SPEAKER_00]: University Week. So they are my dear colleagues Krisse Vesaamaa, Kari
Keuru and Miki Mielonen and our wonderful community educator
[SPEAKER_00]: students. And that force, we have chosen that topic because at HUMAC we
are not, if we look at the Finnish definition, so we are not educating
[SPEAKER_00]: social workers. So we are educating youth workers and community
workers. And that force, we... also wanted to have that kind topic that
[SPEAKER_00]: it's fitting also perfect for social work students and also for our own
students. And when people think about Finland, is it going to be cold?
[SPEAKER_03]: Any ice beers? In April? Okay, I can promise it will be cold. But it's also
promised that it will be sunny. Sun will be shining the whole week.
[SPEAKER_03]: infrastructure, Helsinki, you just fly in there. It's pretty easy to
get to, right? It's very easy to get there. And so our local
[SPEAKER_00]: traffic is also very easy. And you can find every information from net.
So you can plan your traveling inside of Helsinki. And so it's very easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Very easy going city. Yeah, absolutely. And then I need to say that you
asked from the others about these field visits. Yeah, field visits. And
[SPEAKER_00]: we haven't decided them yet because in Helsinki there is so huge variety
with really wonderful, brilliant service providers. So it's really
[SPEAKER_00]: that it's not so easy to choose. There are so many possibilities, but I
can guarantee that there will be really wonderful field visits. Yeah,
[SPEAKER_03]: that's great. Should we move over to Groningen? Yes. And Groningen is in
the Netherlands. It's in the Netherlands. It's in the north. North?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, all the way in the north. So people traveling there, you take the
train or you fly to Amsterdam? Well, if you are in Groningen and you want
[SPEAKER_02]: to travel throughout Europe, either you go to Amsterdam or you can go to
Eindhoven, but you can also go into Germany. Yeah. There's some German
[SPEAKER_02]: airports over there as well. So luckily public transport as well,
right? So you can go places. Yeah. You can go places. But what is the theme
[SPEAKER_03]: that you have chosen? The theme is – and it has to do with social workers
and advocacy basically. It has to do with activating social networks
[SPEAKER_02]: and volunteering initiatives that exist and that social workers can –
make better use of what is already there. And the reason we chose this has
[SPEAKER_02]: to do with the fact, well, there are already a lot of these initiatives,
but what we see as well is with aging, because there is a generational gap
[SPEAKER_02]: coming, that there are more people of age, I would say, than young
people. So this puts some strain on not only society, but on the welfare
[SPEAKER_02]: system as well, meaning that we need to find creative solutions, that
what we used to have isn't always, I would say, the most normal thing that
[SPEAKER_02]: you can assume it will happen. So, you know, a government makes choices,
there are austerity measures, and we look at... Well, how can we use that
[SPEAKER_02]: what is already there and how can we empower people but also social
workers to work on a methodological…
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a hard word. Tongue twister for today. Methodological?
Methodological. Never mind. Using methods. Best practices. Thank
[SPEAKER_02]: you. Yes. Ways to… you know, to work on this specific topic. So there are a
lot of initiatives in Groningen in the area as well, which is very nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, well, today we had a meeting and we discussed how many people would
approximately visit. So that allows us as well to, you know, talk with
[SPEAKER_02]: our partners to see what is possible with regard to the field visits.
And, yeah. When it comes to that, I think Groningen is a very
[SPEAKER_02]: international city. I think Hansa has about more than 80-plus people
different nationalities studying and I think 25% of the city is made up
[SPEAKER_02]: of students so you see students everywhere as well. I've been visiting
Groningen a couple of times and whenever I... I'm 43 years old to say that
[SPEAKER_03]: and I'm always the oldest one I feel when I walk into the streets because
the streets are full of students. Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a very energetic city when it comes to that. There's always
something happening. It's a nice atmosphere. And a ton of bikes. A lot of
[SPEAKER_02]: bikes. There's bikes everywhere. So that was a quick introduction of
the four different places. We are going to exchange actually almost 300
[SPEAKER_03]: students throughout this week. It's a ton of students. We've done it
before, we're going to do it again each year in different places. So
[SPEAKER_03]: these are the four different places for the spring of 2026. We've
included some information now in this podcast episode, but when the
[SPEAKER_03]: students are choosing where to go, please go into the webpage of
socnet98.eu. There you can see links to your individual internet
[SPEAKER_03]: webpages where there will be updated information on how to get
nominated, where you're going to stay, all of this kind of information
[SPEAKER_03]: that you are going to update and give to the students. So if you're
wondering about joining, please read up on it. And yeah, and have a great
[SPEAKER_03]: International University Week. So thank you, everyone, for being a
part of this episode. Thank you for having us. Thank you.