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.
Welcome to the SocialPod, a podcast brought to you by SockNet 98, a network of universities sharing the common interest for social work in an international perspective.
Steinar:So welcome to this episode of The Social Bodies, And, this is the 2nd episode we are, doing from, Leuven in Belgium, the International University Week here. We are now on day it's day 3, I think. Yeah. We're on day 3 of the international no. 4.
Steinar:Sorry. The the days are just running around. And we, in this episode, we're gonna talk to, 2 students and 1 lecture lecturer from, from Austria and and to listen to their impressions on, on on the the university week, up until this time. My name is Steiner Wikult. I'm the international coordinator from University of Southeastern Norway.
Steinar:And let's do a round of introductions. Who's the next one?
Sofia:Yes. My name is Sofia. I'm studying social work in Austria and doing their semester. Originally, I'm from Germany, and I'm studying their social work in the 6th semester at the FA Minster.
Steinar:Oh, so that means that you're not from Austria and you're not you're not an Austrian student? Or
Sofia:No. I'm, like, a German student doing an Erasmus semester in Austria at St. Paulin.
Steinar:What year are you in in in Germany?
Sofia:The 6th semester.
Steinar:The 6th semester? Yeah. And that means that at the 6th semester, you can travel to to another place and do do a semester abroad.
Sofia:Yes. We can do it whenever we would like to.
Steinar:Oh, that's nice. But
Sofia:the 6th semester fitted for me the best. And I'm nearly, like, at the end of my studies.
Steinar:Yeah. That's great. And also when you go to Austria, then you speak just German there
Sofia:also. Yes, that was like a big point for going to Austria there. I can study in my
Steinar:in your own language. Yeah. Yeah. Try to send students also abroad with the challenges that no one else in in Europe speak Norwegian. And the next one here is
Elisa:Hello. My name is Elisa. I I'm also studying, in St. Paulsen, in Austria. And I'm in my 1st year of the bachelor program social work.
Elisa:Yes.
Steinar:Yeah. And you are, like, a Austrian native? You're
Elisa:originally from Austria? I'm from Austria originally, and I'm, like, only, like, 20 minutes away from my university.
Steinar:Oh, so so you actually grew up near St. Paulsen? In St. Paulsen?
Elisa:Not in St. Paulsen, but, like, I have to go by train 25 minutes, and I'm in the university.
Steinar:Yeah. In the university in St. Polten.
Christine:Yes.
Steinar:Would that be because I've been there a couple of times. Because I know also that Vienna is almost, like, 25 minutes.
Elisa:Yes.
Steinar:Is that is the different direction?
Elisa:Or Yeah. It's, in the opposite direction.
Steinar:In the opposite direction. Yeah. That's one of the things I try to tell my students when to apply for St. Paulson. It's just it's right outside Vienna.
Elisa:Yes. Because in Vienna, you have the capital city, and then you have lots of sightseeing things to do there. And
Steinar:yeah. Yeah. It's a beautiful city. And the last one we have with her.
Christine:Yes. My name is Christine. I'm native Austrian and Viennese. Wow. And, I'm the program, director of the program of social work bachelor
Steinar:for a long time, the SocNet?
Christine:Yes. I think for almost 20 years, maybe.
Sofia:20 years?
Steinar:Wow. So you have seen the the how international university have may has it changed during the years?
Christine:Yes. Of course. I've been to many places. It's always, like, a little bit the competition of the hosting partners, and, I like it very much. Yes.
Steinar:That's great. And one thing about International University Week is that we are we are doing workshops. So, all the faculty, all the teachers that is traveling, sometimes also with some of the students, they are holding workshops. And then all the other students, the and also the faculty, they they they attend these workshops. And each of the international universities has their own, themes.
Steinar:And as I talked about in the last episode, the theme for this one is human rights, never ending story. And, but, now we are on day 4, and I just wonder about if you could talk a little bit about what workshops shops that you think was, special that you've been attending. Can we start with Yousef? Yeah.
Sofia:Yes. I just had a workshop about yoga with street children, and it the main topic was, children's rights. Yeah. And the right to be happy. Yeah.
Sofia:And the yoga teacher was a very interesting person, and he, talked a lot about his practical work. Yeah. And he is also teaching yoga in India, especially in Sri Lanka, and he is, walking around there through the streets with an eye catcher.
Steinar:What is that?
Sofia:The eye catcher, was a whale.
Steinar:Okay. Yeah. And Meaning something just to catch the eye?
Sofia:Yes.
Steinar:Okay. You now see. Yeah.
Sofia:Yeah. And, like, to get the children's attention
Steinar:Yeah.
Sofia:And then and the, like, so that they come to him and they have something to speak about. Yeah. This is what the eye catcher is for. And he really told us, like, about the main reason for yoga and why it's important and how to do yoga and teach yoga to children for to, like, from the different ages, which exercise we can do with them Yeah. Was very interesting.
Steinar:Is that something that you heard about in Germany before?
Sofia:Not yet. We also have yoga classes, but not especially for children. And I never had a class before, so it was very interesting.
Steinar:Did you do some yoga?
Sofia:Yes.
Steinar:You did? Yeah. Yeah. How did you find it?
Sofia:I really liked it. And we did also, like, a lot of, like, working out and rest
Steinar:Yeah. And,
Sofia:like, a lot of breathing work. It was very interesting. Yeah.
Steinar:Yeah. It's really nice how you see this. The workshops, some, a lot of them is very active, interactive, trying to both speak and to do something. Have you, what workshop have, you've been in?
Elisa:So, especially, I wanted to talk about the workshop where topic was, participation participation of disabled peoples in sports activities. Oh, yeah. And, I think the cool thing about this workshop was, like, we also saw how it can be. So we were put in the situation of a disabled person.
Steinar:How how did it do that?
Elisa:We had different games
Steinar:Yeah.
Elisa:To play in teams. And, for example, one of our teammate was blind, and we had to figure out how to, like, compete against each other Yeah. When there is a disabled person or could be a disabled person. And, yeah, that was great to see how the people react. Yeah.
Steinar:Yeah. How what did you learn from it?
Elisa:So, also, there was, like, the question, what is the most important thing to, to consider if there is if there are disabled persons? And, they told us that, first of all, you have to make really easy rules.
Steinar:Mhmm.
Elisa:So you have to explain the games or the activity really easy to everyone so they can understand in that easy way. Yeah. And, yeah, we learned that it's important to have, like, a little bit different behavior if there are people who are not, like, able to do anything. And yeah.
Steinar:Yeah. That's great. I I think that was, the workshop that was done by my colleague and my students from Norway. Yeah. How was it to have a workshop together with other Norwegian students?
Elisa:It was great, but there were not only Norwegians. Yeah. But I think they did a great job. Yeah. And it was also very cool for us because it was not only a workshop where we are, like, listening, asking questions, and, like, just, taking the information from the speaker, but also, doing an exercise on our own Yeah.
Elisa:And to see how it really feels or
Sofia:Yeah.
Steinar:Yeah. Doing
Elisa:To have that experience.
Steinar:That's great. So these were 2 examples from workshops, but we also have field visits. And, you have just been on a field visit earlier this morning. Can Yes. Say something about it.
Christine:Yes. I just returned from a, field visit, and, we've been to, the neighborhood. And, the neighborhood is like, in Leuven, it's a kind of structured social room. It's like, you divide, the city into such neighborhood, borders. Okay.
Christine:And within the neighborhood, there were activities to, to make contact, between people who lived there, poor people, but also middle class people. And, she talked a lot. We walked around, actually. We were in the neighborhood, and she talked a lot about loneliness and that health is not only a medical problem, but health is very much a social problem, also a mental health issue. And she was talking about, how to bring people together.
Christine:And even with some very small projects, for instance, they set up a project, for smiling.
Steinar:Oh, smiling project.
Christine:Smiling project.
Steinar:How how was that?
Christine:That, It's like, they figured out that sometimes you think on big projects where you need a big amount of money.
Steinar:Oh, yeah.
Christine:And then it was like the the members of the group who said, it's not only, I'm recognized when somebody says hello in the street, but when somebody smiles at me. So now they are going to print out smileys and, put them everywhere and encourage people to smile to each other. That's great. And I found, that's a very nice idea.
Steinar:Yeah. So what was your take home?
Christine:My take home we we know we have projects like this in Vienna as well and also in St. Polten, but, my bring home is the combination of having a base where people can have coffee and tea and also, cheap meals, and doing outreach. And to combine both doing outreach but also having a place where you can invite people to come and to have workshops over there, for instance. That's my bringing home.
Steinar:That's great. Is there anything else what you would like to talk about in International University Week? What what have you, what is these things that you you think that you're going to think back on in 1 or 2 months' time?
Elisa:So I think in general, we can benefit from every workshop or field visit. And what was very interesting to see other organizations, working in Leuven or also in Brussels, because yesterday, we went to Brussels. Yeah. And, yeah, I think we benefit from everything, for our future career as social workers. Yeah.
Elisa:Yeah.
Steinar:One of the things I always, think about is, that we do a lot of stuff the same way. And sometimes I'm surprised about how we actually we we we do the same things, and I can recognize you're doing something in another country. And I was like, yeah, we also do this in Norway. And also the other way around, that why why are we not doing this in Norway? But both of them is also, like, connecting us internationally.
Steinar:Seeing that, we we we as social workers, we we we are international. We we challenge we have different, we're working with the same challenges, but on different levels maybe and or different approaches. This is one of the things I always love about, traveling into International Universe 2 weeks.
Christine:Yes. And also, like the topic of this week, human rights, if you even if you don't feel it or point it out in every workshop or field with it. But human right is so important, and that's also bringing home, to remember myself that, social work is a human rights profession
Steinar:Absolutely.
Christine:And to think about how, maybe in teaching and also in the workshops at home, you can highlight them in one or the other way or even to research on the human rights.
Steinar:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Just going in for the last one because, you're from St. Polten, and and you as a student, you you you're studying in St.
Steinar:Paulsen. You're not studying this course that I would like to hear about. It's called Ilab. Can you just tell us a little bit about iLab? Because I had 1 Norwegian students go going there because this is a course that it's it's taught in English.
Steinar:Yeah. So so what is Ilab?
Christine:Well, Ilab is an interdisciplinary international lab, where we invite my very much students from all over Europe to join. And it's a Certi ECDIS program where small groups, you're you're joining teams, and those teams, try to solve real, world problems. They are connected to SDGs, to the 17, sustainable development goals. And, yeah, that's quite interesting because, when you apply, like, you you apply to to go there, like, like the student of, Munsterdas for an for an incoming semester. And, once you're in iLab, you work together, but you bring your expertise as a social work student on the social work perspective, and this is very, important.
Steinar:Because it's not only social workers that Yes. Do iLive. It's it's people from different
Christine:backgrounds. True. There are also techniques or commercial, study students. Also, we run, railway studies. They also join.
Christine:So, you need it's really a collaborating, project. So you really need the expertise of, all those professionals to solve problems. Like, for instance, there was one, they finally turned out to produce a video, which shows the consequences of mobbing. Yeah. So they had a lot of perspectives, but, of course, they needed to produce a video.
Christine:They also needed the expertise of the techniques or of the audio and video students, and, that was one of the results. But there's many, many several, such projects.
Steinar:So it's a very practical course that you're actually going to do something together with other
Christine:people. It's very practical, but still, if you need to write, for instance, your bachelor's thesis and you need a topic to write this one, you could get it out of Ilab. So you could even put it on a it's very practical, but you can could also put it on a research level or on a theoretical level afterwards, for instance.
Steinar:And I would believe that when you're working in, in a course that is with different people from different backgrounds, from different countries, you will get to know a lot of people. You will just learn about a lot of stuff just because of the people that you're in the class with.
Christine:Yes. You're building networks, of course. You have also cultural maybe cultural differences you are dealing with. And you also get, as well as a, lab master, but also a coach. So the groups are coached also because you you're self organized, and that's sometimes a challenge.
Christine:You don't have this katul you're used to. You have to you have to make up the mind with your group. When are your working hours? What are you, you know, what what you want to do next?
Steinar:That's interesting. I might make sure to put a link in the description of the episode for that one.
Christine:Yeah.
Steinar:So, I think I'm gonna round it up. Thank you so much for, sharing your experiences from the International University of Care in Leuven so far. We still have, rest of this day and tomorrow, and, so thank you so much.
Sofia:Thank you. Thank
Christine:you very much for interviewing. Bye.