A Whole Week with Intercultural Competences in Action
During the week we worked with the theme: Intercultural competences in action. We had a lot of guest teachers, and we even visited a woman in Tåstrup.
Monday– Global Village
It can be difficult to understand why some people leave their country where they have lived all of their life. Why they move across the world to a place with a different culture and different norms. That is what we were about to learn. It was the first day of a whole week focused on meeting different people from different cultures: Intercultural competences in action. We didn’t know what to expect, but we showed up - wanting to learn something – and we did.
We started off having guest teachers all Monday - two young people from the NGO MS Action Aid Denmark. Through information and games they taught us how to react when we meet other cultures. One of the exercises that we did was a kind of role play, where some of us had to pretend to be from an imaginary country with different culture and rules than what we are used to. Others were European engineers and together we had to build a bridge. It was fun and interesting at the same time, to try and understand how it is to work with someone who is different. We also learned about how different languages and greetings can be a barrier and how to tackle it. It was very useful for the rest of the week.
Tuesday
It was Tuesday morning and we were just finished with cleaning and making our classroom as cozy as it could be for our guests. Some of the students from Slagelse Language School would visit us a couple of hours today and let us interview them. Our group ended up with a woman from Sri Lanka and a woman from Thailand.
We got the chance to interview them and asked them several questions about their background, history and why they moved to Denmark. The first woman we interviewed was Uthayatharisinys from Sri Lanka. We asked her why she moved away and she told us about the civil war in Sri Lanka, and how it moved closer to her, and the troubles around the country.
As she fled from the problems, she moved to Denmark to be an Au Pair in Frederiksværk for one and a half year, because her husband lived in Korsør.
She was 28 years old when she moved to Denmark. She has lived here for 7 years and is now working with the language and trying to get well integrated in the Danish society.
The other woman we talked to was Supaporn from Thailand. She moved to Denmark because her husband lived here and to get a better life. She was 28 years old when she moved to Denmark and has now lived here for five years. She has three kids on 2, 4 and 6 years, which makes it hard for her to focus on the language. Nevertheless, speaking of cultural competences and about moving to a new country with no acquaintances, leads to a question. Why do people move or flee from their country to another?
As we see with these two women. One is a refugee because of warfare, whilst the other seeks a completely new country for the chance of a better life.
Being a refugee from the civil war and with the threat of losing her home, it is understandable that Uthayatharisinys fled, but as an individual, moving for a better life is something else. The main reasons for moving countryside are the cause of factors like your job, love or economic crisis.
But for the reason being, it will be a hard time to move country, to something new, new norms, new culture and perhaps new language.
Thursday
The fourth day of our week was meeting cultures. The day started as we took the train to Tåstrup, to interview an Iranian woman; MarjanGanjou. She is a school and home coordinator at Selsmose School. The Selsmose School is different from so many other schools in Denmark. The Selmose School lays in a so-called “Ghetto” Tåstrupgård, and it is a full-day school. 99% of the pupils are foreigners, from different cultures, and for the most part from countries like Turkey, Somalia and east Europe.
We stepped out of the train and the sun was shining, and the sky was blue. While we walked toward the “Ghetto” we asked ourselves; what defines a Ghetto? We walked past five ladies, one with a big shopping cart, and another one with a little baby. What they all had in common was their foreign appearance. We were getting closer to the so-called “Ghetto”, and we were surprised how the “Ghetto” looked. It wasn’t as dark or shabby as we had imagined. Tåstrupgård is a town in a town. They have their own society. They have a school, clubs and a café. Our first impression of the “Ghetto” was that it was a nice place.
It was time to meet MarjanGanjou. We stepped into Selmose School, and at the same time there was a smiling lady walking towards us with her hand reaching towards us, ready to shake our hands. She served us some tea and coffee and we all sat down at table. MarjanGanjou is one of the 45,2million refugees in the world. She came to Denmark in 1988 because her man is a political refugee. She got married when she was sixteen and her childhood was not a dream childhood. Since 1979 there has been turmoil in Iran. MarjanGounjou and her family have been forced to move around Iran. She is a very inspiring person, she have fled across the world, to our little country; Denmark. The only things she had heard about Denmark was HC Andersen’s fairytales and she thought Denmark was the capital of Sweden. When she fled, she realized that she would never come back to Iran. She was very political active, both in Denmark and in Iran. She told us it’s too dangerous to go back to Iran, and her family told her she shouldn’t even think about it. We were speechless; in our age she was already married moved from her family, and today she is smiling and incredible grateful for living and starting a family in a country like Denmark. Today she is helping kids whom are refugees our second generation immigrates.
Friday
It was Friday morning and four exciting people arrived at Flakkebjerg. They were exchange students from KrogerupHøjskole. These students are a part of a project called Crossing Boarders where they stay at KrogerupHøjskole for almost half a year. The students are four different nationalities, and it was one man and three women. The man is from Burma and the women are from Tunisia, Japan and USA. One by one they told us their story and how they came to Denmark.
The man from Burma told his story. He moved from Burma last year. He really enjoys it in Denmark. His biggest problem with Denmark is the language. The reason he moved to Denmark was because he got a scholarship.
Then the Tunisian women told the story of how Tunisia has changed the past couple of years. How her life suddenly got turned up side -down. She did not go to school for a month because there were snipers on the roof of the school. She came to Denmark because she wanted to be a journalist and get better at English. She also got a scholarship so she could come to Denmark.
The woman from Japan told us how the earthquake in Japan had an impact on her. She had to move to a new city and start a new life. She was very angry about the situation, but instead of doing nothing she started a twitter account (social media) where she tweeted about how the government did nothing. After some months more people started listen to her and she got interviewed. She moved to Denmark to learn better English.
The American women talked about USA and how her life was and where she lived. She moved to Denmark because one of her friends had been to KrogerupHøjskole and convinced her to go there.
The interesting thing was that they had such different stories, but they all moved to Denmark because they wanted to learn more so they could help in their own country
By Anna Ginty, Karl-Emil Bang, Asta Vølund and Nicolai Clemmensen.
Supaporn from Thailand is vistingFlakkebjerg