LCN spin off links students from Glasgow and Cork - University of Glasgow BA Community Development team welcomes University of Cork
The BA Community Development team at Glasgow University welcomed in the second week of January 2015, for the 2nd year running, students and staff from the University of Cork, who were on a week-long study visit to Glasgow.
These visits were made possible as a result of the BACD team attending PASCAL's first Learning Cities conference held in Cork September 2013. This conference drew the attention of academics, civic partners and community organisations to the EcCoWell concept which has been developed by Peter Kearns within PASCAL International Exchanges (PIE) and further developed in the Learning Cities Networks. And like most conferences the opportunity to mix and mingle with others was spot on and as a result.
The University of Glasgow now has a really good relationship with our colleagues and counterparts in the University of Cork, evidenced by the study visits. The post graduate students from Cork who are studying for their Higher Diploma in Social Policy got the opportunity to visit a number of community projects that are supported by the BA Community Development students on placement/ practice. The visits included students, staff and members of Flourish House (International Clubhouse model) whose focus is on supporting those affected by mental health issues, Ruchazie Community Church who provide support and assistance to the local community in many guises and finally ng homes who provided a very insightful journey through the North of Glasgow in terms of the work carried out specifically through the Regeneration team.
The students said afterwards that they really enjoyed hearing about the work that goes on in each of the projects and enjoyed the question and answer session at the end of each visit.
In continuing to build the relationship between both institutions a return visit to Cork is being organised to take over approximately 18 BA Community Development students in mid June. This will be an opportunity for them to see Community Development in a different context as well as meeting up with students to exchange ideas and knowledge.
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