The student project "Students for Exchange" was revived with a visit in September.
With the project "Students for Exchange - Shaping Inclusion Together" founded by HSZG students, prospective social science students gained valuable experience at the Oleksander Dovzhenko National Pedagogical University. From September 16 to 24, 2017, five students of special education/inclusion studies and social work traveled to Hlukhiv, a small medium-sized town with a population of around 33,000 located 300 km north-east of Kiev on the border with Russia.
There has been a cooperation agreement between the Ukrainian university and the HSZG since 2011. Based on the positive exchange experiences of teaching staff and students in the past, Andrei Meyer, Donata Junghardt and Paul Neumann (Curative Education/Inclusion Studies course) developed the project "Students for Exchange - Shaping Inclusion Together" in winter 2016.
"Our aims include raising awareness of the cultural and political conditions in the other country and facilitating a change of perspective in order to consider new solutions to theoretical and practical problems in implementing the idea of inclusion," says project co-founder Andrei Meyer. The students receive financial support from the DAAD's Eastern Partnership Program and from the evz Foundation (Remembrance, Responsibility and Future) as part of the "MEET UP! German-Ukrainian Youth Encounters" program. This foundation is supporting the social scientists' project for one year.
In May 2017, the Görlitz site of the HSZG was delighted to welcome eleven Hlukhiv students from the fields of social sciences and philology. During the current ten-day visit to Ukraine, the Görlitz guests spent time in various practical facilities for the disabled and elderly and organized courses and leisure activities together. "I like to describe the trip to Hlukhiv with two simple words: interesting and fascinating. It was fascinating to get to know a culture that was almost completely new to me. It was interesting to gain many valuable insights into the topic of inclusion. The trip left a lasting impression on me," says Paul Neumann, summing up his visit to Ukraine.
"Whether the very successful "Students for Exchange - Shaping Inclusion Together" project will be continued beyond this year depends largely on whether students from younger matriculants want to get involved in this idea," says Prof. Dr. Ingolf Prosetzky and calls on all students interested in cultural exchange to help shape the idea of inclusion at the HSZG.
Text: Cornelia Rothe, M.A.
