globalstudentsinitiative2022

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On this last official day of PREMIUM, we’d like to look back at the pinnacle of our work together: The Workshop-Event for the students of Porta Mosana at UNS40. We are happy and thankful for the students to have opened their minds, embracing the experience. Have a look for yourselves! :)

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What is our target group taking away from our project activities?

With the end of PREMIUM slowly starting to knock on our doors, we are looking back on what the PREMIUM journey has taught us. Every member of our team is taking away many lessons from the past months, however, you might be wondering what is our target group - Porta Mosana high school students - taking away from our project activities? 

At the end of the final event organized last week we asked the students for some written feedback, and we wanted to share some excerpts with you.

Question: What is your most important take-away from this event? 

'I learnt that everyone is biased, even though they might not realize it.'

'That you can be vulnerable in discussions once you find the right people. I felt that the atmosphere in the workshop was great, and I felt comfortable sharing my views.'

'I learnt a lot about myself.'

'I became aware of my carbon footprint and now I am thinking of the ways how to reduce it.'

Question: How will you implement what you have learnt today in your daily life? 

'I will try to be more open-minded.'

'Next time I come across someone I don't know I will make the first step and start a conversation.'

'I will be more sustainable with food.'

'I will try changing my behavior and be more aware of what I do. If I ever do something 'wrong' (bias), then I can learn from it and do it differently in the future.'

The feedback we received also included some points for potential improvement, which we have reflected on within the team which allowed us to grow and learn further. 

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WE DID IT!

Exactly a week ago, we managed to organize a 3-hours long event for high school students from Porta Mosana College at Maastricht University. In total, our team delivered 8 hours of workshops and all workshops were given to 30+ students. We hope that we have positively contributed to the development of the students' Global Citizenship skills. 

So, what is ahead of our team now?

This week: 

We are currently busy finishing our educational booklet, which outlines the main questions behind our project activities - WHY we do what we do, WHAT is it that we do as well as HOW exactly we do it - and which will later have the potential to be distributed among educators

Next week: 

A big social dinner with the whole team as well as our Mentor Arie, our Client Casper and our Coach Annette

The closing event

We are excited (and a bit sad as the end is approaching fast) to share the last moments of PREMIUM all together. 

PS: Look at that, after 5 months of taking team photos together, we still fail from time to time - especially when using a self-timer. Nevertheless, these photo fails usually make us laugh, which means that our smiles on the final photo are always huge! 

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Final prep for the big event on Thursday!

We are currently in the midst of final touches for the final event of our PREMIUM project that will happen in the buildings of Maastricht University tomorrow.  Tomorrow, we will welcome approximately 100 high school students from Porta Mosana College who will be joining us for several workshops that fall within the lines of the Global Citizenship Education track they currently follow at Porta Mosana.  The members of our amazing PREMIUM team will be offering 4 workshops in total to the students:

Jenni will deliver a SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION workshop

Agata will offer a workshop on UNCONSCIOUS BIAS

Lana has prepared a CULTURE & CONNECTION workshop: the GLASSroom workshop

Isabell & Zuzi will facilitate a workshop on LEADERSHIP SKILLS

We cannot wait to work together with the students on further developing their 'Global Citizenship' skills.  Stay tuned for how it went, we will tell you all about it in our next Tumblr post! 

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One of the workshops we have done at Porta Mosana is 'SDG&Me'. We invited Cara from AISEC, an international studentorganisation that dedicated themselves to providing young people with immersive, effective intercultural exchange experiences. In order to bring Sustainable Development Goals to the youth and make the world a better place.

In het introduction, Cara told the students from Porta Mosana about AISEC’s new project to incite and stimulate leadership. But also about other fun projects they do: https://aiesec.nl/

After this short introductory talk, we started the 'rounds' of approximately 10 minutes each. In each round, our team members spoke about the SDG they have affinity towards, and why. Jenni spoke about sustainability and how one can connect SDGs to daily life, Agata focused on SDG3 about health and well-being for all, Lana about discrimination in medicine and research, and Cara gave the students the opportunity to ask more questions about AISEC and the SDGs.

During the workshops we saw a 'light' go on behind the eyes of the students, whom were slightly bewildered when the bell rang, indicating the class' end. This workshop was not like a regular class and it seemed like the students thoroughly enjoyed it.

In the video clip you can see Cara giving her introduction, the whole classroom during the workshops, Lana explaining about skin conditions across skin tones and Jenni showing pictures of her life and connecting them to SDGs.

And some more pictures!

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Team Dynamics Meeting - or should we rather say 'dinner, LEGO and lots of reflection'?

Last Wednesday, we had our Team Dynamics Meeting. Our amazing coach Annette opened her home to us, cooked a very tasty dinner for us and guided us through reflection on where we currently stand as a team.  We spent almost 3 hours discussing the progress we have made so far, the work that is ahead of us as well as how we can make the team function even better in the last stages of the project. During one of the activities, we were encouraged to make use of our LEGO building skills to express how we view our roles within the 'Global Students Initiative' team. You wouldn't believe how effective LEGO was for making our discussions more profound. We are very grateful to our coach Annette as well as to each other for making the evening a very lovely and unique experience. 

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Team Dynamics Meeting at Sunset

Our inspiring Team Dynamics Meeting with our mentor Arie at sunset. 

By choosing pictures for each other that represented each team member’s strengths, we showed our appreciation and admiration for each other. It quickly became a wonderful experience with a flood of compliments and insights into our own qualities and their effect on others. 

We all realised, we couldn’t be any happier with our team constellation, our mentor, client, & coach.

Thank you, PREMIUM for this fulfilling experience. This reinforced positivity encourages us to further put our heart and soul into this project. More amazing things are yet to come!

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A picture that perfectly captures our group. Creativity, innovation and progress require positive energy & a lot of fun!

This is us with our mentor Arie after the midterm presentations. Arie guides our team through the project planning and execution. Not only does he give us important insight into our team dynamics, he also brings in so much energy, positivity, & joy. 

Thanks a lot, Arie! We appreciate working with you.

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This is us!

Finally, a proper group picture! :)

From left to right: Agata, Isabell, Lana, Jenni and Zuzi.

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Agata comes from Poland and is currently pursuing the Governance and Leadership in European Public Health Master’s programme at FHML. After completing her Bachelor’s and Master’s in Biotherapies, she decided that instead of discovering new solutions, she wants to make the existing ones more accessible. Hence, through the knowledge gained in her current degree, she hopes to bridge the gap in health inequalities among countries. She had an amazing opportunity to pursue her studies in many countries, such as France, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, and Poland. Thanks to this international experience, and many valuable encounters and conversations, she witnessed how different the quality of life can be depending on age, gender, ethnicity, origin, religion, or economic status (to cite a few). She believes that sustainable development cannot be achieved, if some are excluded from the chance for a better life. The difference between equality and equity should be emphasised, and this means providing more to those who need it. If equality is the end goal, equity is the means to get there.

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Lana is 23 years old, from The Netherlands, and is currently busy with the Arts-Klinisch Onderzoeker (Medicine-Clinical Research) Master at Maastricht University (FHML). She obtained her Bachelor degree in Psychobiology in Amsterdam and was an active member in the study union CONGO. CONGO is a biologist union and is very passionate about climate change and sustainability, as is she. Therefore she has chosen for SDG 12 ‘Responsible Consumption and Production’ and SDG 13 ‘Climate Action’. Though Lana finds all the SDGs really important, to her the SDG 12 and 13 are the overarching, urgent problems that have to be handled. But she does believe that more SDGs can and should be handled at once.

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Team Member Zuzi

Another day, another team member!  Zuzana (by friends always called Zuzi) comes from the Czech Republic and is currently pursuing the MA in European Public Affairs at FASoS. Being very passionate about educating the youth, she was happy to join the 'Porta Mosana' project. Besides PREMIUM, she is active in education as a tutor at FHML as well as she teaches a week-long course on 'Women's Health and Human Rights' at a summer school for talented high school students in Central Europe. In the past, she organised dozens of educational events for university students as well as the general public. Zuzi is a big believer in the empowerment of women and girls, which is well-represented in the 'gender equality' sustainable development goal - SDG 5.

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Team Member Isabell

Isabell pursues the Research Master programme in Neuropsychology after completing her Bachelor of Psychology in Scotland & Spain. Originally from Germany, Isabell has now worked, studied, & lived in 5 countries and had the privilege to encounter & become friends with people from across the globe. Based on her intercultural exchange and her experiences gathered in hospital settings and the mental health sector, Isabell developed the passion of raising awareness about how body and mind are intertwined. That’s why the 3rd SDG “Good Health & Well-Being” is particularly close to her heart.

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Team Member Jenni

It is time to start introducing the GLOBAL STUDENTS INITIATIVE team members. Today, we are excited to introduce Jenni! Jenni is 26 years old, originally from Germany, currently studying the master program of Health Education & Promotion at FHML. Through travelling, working, volunteering, couchsurfing, interacting and studying in many different intercultural contexts across 3 different continents she was able to experience herself the great value of life-learning. Realising and feeling global life’s beauty contributed to her great motivation to promote health and sustainable living through high quality education which is represented in the SDG #4.

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Here you see the observation and tutoring sessions of Jenni, Isabell and Lana with year 4 of the Porta Mosana College. The class was divided into three groups. The students you’re seeing have chosen the GP tract and have TTO. This means their education is given both in English and Dutch. Ages of the students ranging from 15 to 16.

It was incredibly insightful and fun to converse with these students. Afterwards, we discussed our insights and ideas with Casper Gardeniers. We can’t wait for the next sessions. We are already overflowing with workshop ideas!

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Arrival by bike yesterday, for our second observation and tutoring session at Porta Mosana College. Here you see Isabell (left) and Jenni (right) and Lana’s shoes ;)

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Our client: Casper Gardeniers

Our client is Casper Gardeniers, senior teacher for 'Global Perspectives and Research' and the coordinator of the bilingual tract for Porta Mosana College. Mr. Gardeniers took the initiative to join the PREMIUM project with the aspiration to provide his students with opportunities to acquire intercultural competencies, develop awareness of global matters & eventually gain global problem-solving skills.

The challenge is to make these complex theoretical skill sets tangible and applicable to the students. - This is where our team, the Global Students Initiative, comes in to join forces.