Tuesday 26 February 2019 1:40pm
The first Matariki Global Citizenship Exchange student to visit Otago, Linh Nguyen (right), with the Manager of Otago's Student Volunteer Centre, Sze-En Watts.
The first student to visit Otago under the newly launched Matariki Global Citizenship Exchange programme says she is impressed by the University’s Student Volunteer Centre.
Linh Nguyen, who is completing a Master’s in Marketing at the University of Western Australia, has been based at Otago’s Student Volunteer Centre since mid-January – working with Manager Sze-En Watts and her team on a range of projects including a marketing and communications strategy for UniCrew.
She says she signed up to the exchange to explore ways in which young people can interact with global citizenship, be active citizens and get involved in community engagement.
“I was originally enticed by New Zealand because, as the smaller country across the ditch, it seemed much more progressive, particularly in their relationship with Indigenous peoples. I wanted to explore more of that and find out about the make-up of community engagement and relationship and explore other perspectives of active citizenship.”
"We have learned some valuable lessons in marketing from Linh about how we can communicate our causes more effectively to students."
She says she is learning about ways her university might be able to engage with the community.
“Specifically, through the area that I’m studying, how might we communicate and use effective language to engage with parts of the student body to get involved in volunteering and make a social impact.”
In addition to the marketing and communications work she has completed, Linh has also been working on a social impact tracking framework using the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal as a guiding outline to measure volunteer hours against.
“We are now able to measure the total amount of volunteer hours the centre and the student body at Otago contributes to the community,” she say.
Outside of the Volunteer Centre, she has also enjoyed volunteering with Conservation Volunteers Coastal Otago and filming for Science Academy – a science programme for Year 13 students from rural or low decile schools – to support them with their promotion of the programme.
Linh will head back to Australia at the end of this week – but Mrs Watts says her contributions won’t be forgotten.
“We have learned some valuable lessons in marketing from Linh about how we can communicate our causes more effectively to students,” she says. “In particular, we have been exploring how to use our communication platforms effectively to link local initiatives to global issues with the UN’s sustainable development goals.”
Participants in last year's Matariki Global Citizenship Forum at Otakau Marae. Photo: Sharron Bennett.
About the programme
The Global Citizenship Exchange programme was an initiative created during last July’s Matariki Global Citizenship Forum hosted by Otago.
That forum drew students and staff from all of Otago’s Matariki partner universities – the United States’ Dartmouth College, the United Kingdom’s Durham University, Canada’s Queens University, Germany’s Tübingen University, Australia’s University of Western Australia and Sweden’s Uppsala University.
Participants met, shared best practices, and participated in joint-action planning.
With a focus on Community Engagement, they visited Otakou Marae to engage with the Māori context and concepts of community, visited the Te Kaika health centre, and lunched with local community activists catered by Syrian refugees that have resettled.
Associate Professor Miranda Mirosa, who is one of Otago’s staff members involved in the network, says these forums provide wonderful opportunities to share knowledge and experience.
An opportunity to get involved
The next forum will be hosted by Durham University from 8 to 10 July – and Otago will be searching for a small group of students to attend.
“We will be looking for students that have some demonstrable experience plus heaps of enthusiasm for aspects of the programme such as community engagement, student empowerment as well as other aspects of global citizenship,” Associate Professor Mirosa says.
“It’s expected that attendance at the forum will allow them to come home brimming with ideas and strategies about how they can contribute to the development of global citizenship at Otago.”
To learn more about the Matariki Global Citizenship programme see: http://matarikiglobalcitizen.org/