09/12/2023
Poland
participants
Core mission of ESN is Enrichment of society through international students. We, ESNers, try to achieve this by providing daily support for international students. This support is not only providing services for them but also advocating for their better treatment and living conditions once abroad. In order to achieve our mission we need to equip our volunteers with specific knowledge and skills.
Volunteers are often first contact for international students who arrive to a foreign country. In homogenous countries, such as Poland, the presence of international students is still a new thing for local communities. Such reality leads to unfortunate discriminatory situations in which international students are the victims. Therefore it's crucial that our volunteers are educated and competent enough to acknowledge this social issue and take adequate measures to fight this problem.
The goal of the trainings during our National Assembly, where the representatives of our local sections gathered, was to raise awareness on the topic and equip participants with basic knowledge on discrimation. Participants learned the root cause of such situations and learned how to use social media platforms to improve the image of international students in Poland.
With the trainings, especially providing daily life examples of discrimination we managed to create a list of activity ideas that would be easy to implement in the local sections as well as brainstormed on the social media plan to ensure we deliver a positive message to the local community.
During our 3-day National Assembly in Wrocław we held 2 training sessions thanks to Developing Youth Voices grant during which we could present and facilitate the topic of Discrimation of Interantional Students. On Friday, day 1 of our NA, we had a training "Fighting stereotypical image of international students in Poland" during which we introduced the topic. First we brainstormed on the image of international students (both exchange and full-time) in Poland. Participants shared their thoughts. This activity was followed by a discussion on the specific examples of situations in which international students were discriminated. Participants shared their experiences and brainstormed on the root cause of such situations. Then the facilitator underlined the need of presence of this topic in our Network and presented the SIEM report (data on discrimination experience). We also discussed the importance of organising such ESN activities that involve the local community, as usually it's the local community who is the source of discriminatory situations/comments. Then participants were put into groups and had a task to create an activity promoting integration of international students into local community. The activities didn't have to be directly mentioning discrimination as the main theme, but we underlined that thanks to various activities involving local and international students we can foster intercultural understanding and prevent discrimination. At the end groups presented their ideas.
On Saturday, day 2 of our NA, we had another session "Diversity of colours, same powerful voices" - this time focused on the communication on social media and the image of international students that ESN sections are creating themselves. Participants could learn about bias and how to avoid creating biased social media content. They also worked in groups to create inclusive social media plan.
This activity is part of the project:
Developing Youth Voices