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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_02]: [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_02]: universities sharing the common interest for social work in an
international perspective. In our episodes, you will hear from
[SPEAKER_02]: students around the world studying social work and interviews and
lectures from our International University Weeks. So welcome to this
[SPEAKER_03]: episode of The Social Pod. We are now in Jena in Germany and we are here for
the International University Week 2026 with the topic of democracy and
[SPEAKER_03]: human rights. And together with me here I have three other students from
Belgium. And we are going to talk a little bit about their experiences
[SPEAKER_03]: during this week. We're now on Thursday, so we only have one day left.
We've been here for a couple of days. But let's first take a round of
[SPEAKER_03]: introductions. Would you mind starting? Hi, my name is Amina. I'm 20
years old and I study in Leuven. And Leuven is? Leuven is in Belgium. In
[SPEAKER_03]: Belgium? Yes. Yeah. I've been there once. I'm going to ask you if you were
from there, but yeah, you're from there. I'm not from there. You're not
[SPEAKER_00]: from there? Yeah, I'm from actually close to where they study. But I
wanted to study in Leuven. Because we have two different universities
[SPEAKER_03]: here. You're from the second one. Yes, my name is Mygte. I'm 24 and I study
at PXL Hogeschool in Hasselt. In Hasselt? Yes. And is that far from
[SPEAKER_03]: Leuven? 40 minutes, I think. 40 minutes? 40 minutes drive. Yeah,
something like that. And where is that? That's just outside Brussels?
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it's in Limburg. It's on the right side in Belgium. Nice. And last
one? Hi, I'm Mechta. I study at the same school in Hasselt. In Hasselt.
[SPEAKER_05]: PXL. PXL. Are you in the same class? No. Different classes. Yes. Cool.
Thank you so much. We didn't know each other actually before this. And
[SPEAKER_04]: now we've been here together for a whole week. Yeah. Bringing students
together, also if you come from the same university. Yes. That is great.
[SPEAKER_03]: And one of the things I truly believe is that when you travel together
with other people, that's when you truly get to know each other. Yes, I
[SPEAKER_04]: guess so. It really is. Well, my name is Steinar Rikolt. I'm from, I work
usually at the University of Southeast Norway, and I'm also the SockNet
[SPEAKER_03]: coordinator for my university.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, each international university week, we try to make a couple of
students episodes. Just simply doing like we do right now. We're
[SPEAKER_03]: actually skipping one of the field visits.
[SPEAKER_03]: But simply just talk about the experience that we have had throughout
this week. But first, if someone just listened to this episode and not
[SPEAKER_03]: the previous ones, I can give a short introduction to what is
International University Week. So we are the network of SACNET 98. We
[SPEAKER_03]: are about 17 different universities throughout Europe that are part of
SACNET 98. And we arrange this International University Week each
[SPEAKER_03]: year. And we arrange it four different places each spring, around April
usually. And this year it is here in Jena, in Germany. It is also in
[SPEAKER_03]: Helsinki, in Finland. It is in Groningen, in Netherlands. And the last
place is? Hasselt. In Hasselt, yes. And since both of those
[SPEAKER_03]: universities are in Belgium, I always mix them up. So yeah, thank you for
saving me. Yeah, and throughout this week, the whole network actually
[SPEAKER_03]: exchanges more than 300 students. So here in Jena now, I think we are
about 80 students. Wouldn't that be right? Yes. 80 students, I think we
[SPEAKER_03]: were 22 teachers.
[SPEAKER_03]: from around Europe. So I think just that is extremely cool, that we are
able to collect that many, gather that many students and teachers from,
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we are 12 different countries or something like that, in one
week. But so that was a short introduction to what is International
[SPEAKER_03]: University Weekend. And throughout this week, we have field visits, we
have workshops, cultural events or seeing sightseeing simply we also
[SPEAKER_03]: done that and having social activities is a third part simply students
meeting students we're maybe going to make a separate episode just
[SPEAKER_03]: about the student part of it And yeah, that is what we're going to talk
about. But first, we suggested that we'll talk about your motivation
[SPEAKER_03]: actually for coming to International University, both even joining an
international university, joining, going abroad, but also why going
[SPEAKER_03]: here to Jena? So Amina, would you like to start off? What's your
motivation? Well, I follow social, I do study social work and we all have
[SPEAKER_00]: to do choice subjects. And I saw this one and this one is very interesting
because I really wanted to learn, get to know people, other students,
[SPEAKER_00]: social work students from around Europe. And that was basically my
motivation. But what was the other stuff you could choose from? Was that
[SPEAKER_03]: other international things or? No, not really. The other stuff was like
going, what was like, because my, what I do in social work is very
[SPEAKER_00]: specifically for like following art and stuff like that and theater. So
you could go and watch that and then discuss it after, stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. But you wanted to go abroad. Yeah. What was the main thing? Why did
you want to go abroad? it's fun it's fun and you get to know people and yeah
[SPEAKER_00]: yeah also learn at the same time yeah so yeah that's cool and your
motivation where was that We also have a subject where we do
[SPEAKER_04]: international stuff and I wanted to explore a new city. We could also go
on a road trip to Auschwitz and Berlin. I really wanted to do that, but it
[SPEAKER_04]: was full. So I chose the one that was most connected to it and it's
democracy and human rights. And it's really my interest. Yeah, so you
[SPEAKER_04]: were also drawn by the topic of the place. Yeah, I was drawn by the topic of
this week. And I could stay and hustle because it's the same, but I really
[SPEAKER_04]: wanted to go abroad. That's nice. Your motivation? I chose one that was
free. Nice and pragmatic. That wasn't free. I'm going to do it. Yes, but
[SPEAKER_05]: in my last year, I really want to study abroad. So I wanted also something
that is not like the Netherlands or Belgium. So I can... learn how it is to
[SPEAKER_05]: be far away from home and to have connections with other students from
other countries. So I can see how it is and then my next year I want to do
[SPEAKER_05]: that for half a year. Yeah, so this was kind of your little test is getting
some experience before committing all the way to going abroad. And it's
[SPEAKER_03]: also nice to hear that you choose this as a subject. I understand it
right, yeah? No, we from Pixel, we didn't choose it as a subject. It just
[SPEAKER_04]: is a subject. So you have to do it? Yeah, we have to do it. Okay, yeah, I see.
Because like in Norway, my Norwegian students, they don't have to do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's just something they can choose on the side of staying at home. So
yeah, it's different in different countries how you end up going here.
[SPEAKER_00]: In my school, it's also a choice. It is, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But you can
choose from either doing this or other choices. Yeah. In the three years
[SPEAKER_00]: of studying, you have to do one choice subject. And this is one of them.
Okay, I see. So I chose this one because it also doesn't have exams
[SPEAKER_00]: either. Yeah. That's great. and a part of this week is different kind of
workshops so we have yeah we're finished now with all different
[SPEAKER_03]: workshops actually and i asked you before we started recording if you
can just mention a couple of examples of workshops that you've been in
[SPEAKER_03]: and your experience from it who want to start I can start. Yeah, sure. So
yesterday on Wednesday, I was in a workshop about forum theater method.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was really out of my comfort zone. I didn't know what to expect. But it
was actually really fun. But what was it? What is foreign theater? Yeah,
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't really know how to explain it. We did some exercises with
increasing our voice and lowering our voice, or speaking with an open or
[SPEAKER_04]: a closed torso, or speaking really fast, really slow. And I actually
spoke with you and it was really fast, but I couldn't understand you. It
[SPEAKER_04]: was really hard to understand. And then we had to take a case and we had to
kind of perform it in front of the whole group. And they could add topics
[SPEAKER_04]: that the people in the case were feeling about. Yeah. So that, I think
it's like a form of acting and kind of showing how you can act as a social
[SPEAKER_04]: worker in different cases. Yeah, because I joined the same workshop and
the reason for me choosing it was because I like to challenge myself and
[SPEAKER_03]: this was way out of my comfort zone also, doing acting. And the thing that
I truly learned about it is that this was one way of training, training
[SPEAKER_03]: social work students in becoming social workers in different kind of
scenarios. Because what I loved about it when you kind of got into it is
[SPEAKER_03]: that you can pause the case, you can redo it, you can change stuff, and
everybody is watching it. Made me uncomfortable, but... but people
[SPEAKER_03]: then can come with suggestions yeah but can you try to change this little
thing or like we also did like visualize what is the thoughts about the
[SPEAKER_03]: people inside of this case what are their baggage or what are they coming
into the case with so it was very nice I think the visualization was
[SPEAKER_04]: really nice because when you speak about it, you can hear it, but you
don't really see all of the topics or all the things that they think about
[SPEAKER_04]: or they're going on inside of their minds. And now you could actually
visibly see how much it actually was because they were standing behind
[SPEAKER_04]: the person. It was like four or five people. So that was nice. Yeah, as a
teacher, I would love to try to do that in my place, back home. Yeah, I
[SPEAKER_04]: spoke with my teacher and she was like, we're going to tell them at school
to start doing it because it's really nice.
[SPEAKER_03]: Amina, what was your workshop that you would like to... Well, I went also
to your workshop. I don't remember the title of it, though. Me neither. I
[SPEAKER_00]: forgot the title of my workshop. It was about bureaucracy or freedom
fighters. It's the first day, so it's a bit far away from my memory. But
[SPEAKER_00]: what I got mostly out of it was, like, it was interesting to hear the
differences of countries, how they give social work. It was very
[SPEAKER_00]: interesting for me to hear, like, Some include more politics, some
don't.
[SPEAKER_00]: You also asked some reflection questions about is it allowed for people
to have right thoughts in class? Right-wing thoughts, yeah. It was
[SPEAKER_00]: interesting to reflect on those topics. It was a very interesting
workshop for me to hold also because I feel that this kind of workshop
[SPEAKER_03]: where it's not a lecture. It's not just me as a teacher standing there
talking a lot. I just introduce the topic and then you as students start
[SPEAKER_03]: truly interacting. And you were extremely good, all of you, to actually
do interact and talk together and discuss. And that's when you truly get
[SPEAKER_03]: the knowledge and sharing the knowledge when you, like you said, it was
so interesting hearing the other students Yeah. And that is the good
[SPEAKER_03]: thing, I think, when we get workshops where the students exchange ideas
and knowledge. Yeah, everybody was very into it, like want to share
[SPEAKER_00]: their ideas. So, yeah. Yeah. And I think it's also started very nicely
that week, this week, to maybe some of the challenges that we know
[SPEAKER_03]: throughout International Universe Week is when students don't, they
feel maybe a little bit afraid of interacting with other students. So it
[SPEAKER_03]: was a nice icebreaker, I think. Yeah, yeah. I definitely got to know some
people from that workshop. Yeah. No, it was nice. And this is again that
[SPEAKER_03]: we are all European educationists of social work, but we have some
differences, both in our history, but also in our classrooms, how we
[SPEAKER_03]: teach, what we think that we're supposed to do and everything like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: What's your workshop? So yesterday I went to the workshop from Leuven.
What was the topic? I don't remember the title either, but it was with
[SPEAKER_05]: children and their studies. Yeah, like inequalities in education.
Yes, and we got a case and then we needed to play a game, like a board game.
[SPEAKER_05]: and then you needed to grab a card and read it and then you had some people
had the case with people that are in higher class some people had the case
[SPEAKER_05]: with people in middle class and some people had the lower class And then
when you needed to grab a card, there was steps forward or steps
[SPEAKER_05]: backwards. And then you really could see that when you're in lower
class, you don't get far in your studies. And the higher people in the
[SPEAKER_05]: higher class can do that better. They achieve higher. Yes. And I think it
was really nice to see in that way how
[SPEAKER_05]: different people can be in that way. What did you think about using a
board game in a workshop? It was really fun. Yeah. It was really fun. It's
[SPEAKER_05]: like another way to let people see that topic. Yeah. And I also think like
a teacher that, especially in Norway, that we as teachers, we just,
[SPEAKER_03]: again, are standing in front of a crowd doing lectures. But this way, you
can see that there's so many different ways of learning instead of just
[SPEAKER_03]: sitting at home reading that book. Because I can't listen that long. I
[SPEAKER_05]: can listen for one minute and then I'm... You're zooming out. Yes. So
when you play a game, you're focused on the game and you want to win. And so
[SPEAKER_05]: you learn. Yeah, you gamify knowledge. I think that is, again, as a
teacher, I love going to international university weeks because I get
[SPEAKER_03]: so many different teaching methods and seeing what the other teachers
are doing. So yeah, that is one of the things I also learn a lot. We have
[SPEAKER_03]: also been on field visits.
[SPEAKER_03]: We had
[SPEAKER_03]: a huge field visit going to, what was the name of the place? Buchenwald.
Yeah, you're better at pronouncing that rather than me. And that was,
[SPEAKER_03]: sorry, that is one of the languages I cannot speak is German. Yeah, the
Buchenwald concentration camp. What do you think about that? I'll
[SPEAKER_04]: start.
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought it was a really nice experience.
[SPEAKER_04]: We had a guide. She was not really comfortable with speaking English, I
guess. So it was a bit hard to concentrate on what she was saying. But it
[SPEAKER_04]: was really interesting. I did leave a bit early because I was really
tired. It was really cold on that day. So I missed out on a lot, like seeing
[SPEAKER_04]: stuff inside, like seeing buildings. And I don't know what's called the
chamber where they rip open the bodies. Yeah, the crematorium. Yeah,
[SPEAKER_04]: the crematorium. I missed out on that. And I think it's really sad that I
missed out on it. But I was freezing. So I left a bit earlier. But I think
[SPEAKER_04]: it's a good thing to go to Buchenwald during the Democracy and Human
Rights Week. Because it is about human rights. Yeah, absolutely. And a
[SPEAKER_04]: lot of people were harmed and a lot of people died. So it's really good to
learn about it. Yeah. Yeah. that is also the this feel is it was both
[SPEAKER_03]: connected to the theme but it's also part of just each international
worst week we prefer to have the students also doing seeing the area
[SPEAKER_03]: seeing what is around there having the cultural part of it also so that
was very nice anyone else have some inputs on I have the same opinion. And
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess it was more interesting when we really could see things and not
just listen and wait till we could see things. But yeah. Yeah. Any other
[SPEAKER_03]: feelings?
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in the same tour as them with Buchenwald, but they left before the
crematorium, right? That was for me the most like, how do you say,
[SPEAKER_00]: pocket, intense part. But indeed, like the tour guide, it was all over
the place. I couldn't focus at all. So I heard the other tour guide was
[SPEAKER_00]: like very, it was like an experience, like a very other people were very
moved because of the tour guides they had. But we had other field visits
[SPEAKER_03]: yesterday. Yeah, that field visit we were also together. Do you
remember the name of the city? I thought it was a very interesting
[SPEAKER_00]: organization. They help people experience discrimination and it's
very subjective.
[SPEAKER_00]: when you experience discrimination. So it's very hard to work with
those cases. So it's very interesting to hear how they do that and
[SPEAKER_00]: brainstorm about it. Yeah, I enjoyed it very much myself also since it
was an organization that was a low threshold organization where people
[SPEAKER_03]: that felt discrimination on race, gender, whatever, they can contact
them and get guidance and support. And I truly just loved that they were
[SPEAKER_03]: so down to earth if you could say that yeah they were very down to earth
yeah yeah I loved it and also the people working their social workers
[SPEAKER_03]: they were very honest about how hard it could be to work like this the
frustration as a social worker you can experience yeah yeah did you join
[SPEAKER_03]: No, you went to another one. No, we stayed here at the university.
Because the lecture was... The organization came here to the
[SPEAKER_04]: university. Yes, because someone was sick or something. And we had
three different organizations and they just gave a presentation.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a bit tiring because it was like I think three hours of
presentations. Just sit and listen. It was really hard to concentrate
[SPEAKER_04]: at some time. But I think it was NDC, Mobitz and the last one I don't
remember. No, same. But I think that what we're talking about is going
[SPEAKER_03]: out and seeing the field, because that's the point. Seeing where other
social workers work, their everyday life in that country. And that is
[SPEAKER_03]: always very nice. Yeah, and I missed out on it a bit yesterday, because we
had to listen to presentations. I couldn't really... Three hours?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, three hours. Two to five. Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you can only concentrate for one minute.
[SPEAKER_05]: After a break, one more minute, break, one more minute. Thank you so much
for your input. I think we're going to round up this episode, but I think
[SPEAKER_03]: we're also going to make a second episode with a focus on student life
throughout International Human Worship Week. So thank you to all the
[SPEAKER_03]: listeners. If you want to hang around for the next episode, please make
sure to listen to the next one. See ya.
Thank you.