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Juliet: Hello everyone, and welcome to a special edition of This is СÀ¶ÊÓƵ 

Alfia: That’s right, today we’re diving into the vibrant tapestry of cultures right here in СÀ¶ÊÓƵ as part of the Global Week festivities. I am Alfia. 

Juliet: I’m Juliet, and this is the Global Week special of

Both: This is СÀ¶ÊÓƵ!

 

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Alfia: We’re in for a great show today, I don’t want to spoil it but you are in for great guests and fabulous surprises. So welcome to the incredible people watching at home,

Juliet: Before jumping in to the festivities, let's talk about what Global Week is all about. The main programme can be seen at www.port.ac.uk/globalweek. It’s a time when we come together to celebrate our beautiful cultural diversity, understanding an unity.

Alfia: Absolutely, and joining us today are special guests who’ve been instrumental in organising this incredible event. Please welcome our very own Head of Student Life, Anna Vaernes, and medallist of the Order of the British Empire, Hayley Wheeler.

 

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Alfia: Hi

Anna: Hello

Hayley: Hi, how are you?

Juliet: Hi

Alfia: Good, how are you?

Anna: Yeah not too bad thank you, enjoying Global Week so far.

Juliet: So far so good.

Anna: You ladies look absolutely fabulous today

Alfia: Thank you

Juliet: Thank you

Anna: Very strong Earring game.

Alfia: Thank you. Anna, Hayley, it’s fantastic to have you here. Can you give us a brief 

overview of what we can expect during Global Week?

Anna: Global Week is a week-long programme of events, there’s something for everyone, there’s things that are in person, there’s things that are online, and we’ve got festivals, celebrations, dances, food events, public lectures, film screenings. So many things…

Hayley: So many things! Swap Shop we’ve had today.

Anna: So many different things

Hayley: Yeah, do check out the programme [nods]

Alfia: So where did the idea of Global Week come from?

Anna: So the idea of Global Week came from [pause] back in 2015-2016 we used to run an event called Festival of Cultures which is now the flagship event for Global Week. And the festival of cultures was a one-day event or half, a couple of hours really, celebrating the cultural diversity of the university. So our students would have a stand, they would showcase their cultures, and it was a really, really fun event. So Global week came from that, from that it’s like what more can we do to showcase and celebrate the diversity that we have on campus and now within our community as well. We’re an educational institution so we want to again educate people and help people learn about what different cultures are [pause] Yeah, that’s where Global Week came from.

Juliet: That sounds great Anna. So why would you say the Global Week is important?

Anna: So Global Week is important because we do have such  a fantastically diverse both student body and staff body at the university of СÀ¶ÊÓƵ, and we have students from over 150 different countries, we have you know incredibly diverse home student population as well, and our staff population and of course we live in СÀ¶ÊÓƵ which is a really, really diverse city 

Hayley: Yeah

Anna: Being a naval city you know the diversity in СÀ¶ÊÓƵ is fantastic. СÀ¶ÊÓƵ is also the University is also a city university, so we’re all mixed in together and we want everyone to integrate and appreciate and understand each other’s cultures. So that’s why it’s so important that we celebrate and showcase that and educate each other. [nods]

Alfia: True. So what are your favourite parts of Global Week?

Hayley: So for for me it’s seeing the students especially come and show off so proudly their different cultures, and more so now that we’ve reached out into the community getting the community involved, seeing them come in and enjoy this part of it and learn learning about different cultures as well. It’s quite a special thing really.

Alfia: Yeah

Hayley: And especially with the flagship event which is happening on Thursday evening when the students will come and perform maybe dance, poetry, singing, playing a musical instrument, and that it’s wonderful for us to see all the different talents that they have from home.

Anna: The energy is just amazing

Alfia, Juliet: Yeah

Anna: The energy and the passion is just really lovely, that’s my favourite.

Hayley: It’s the highlight of the year for us.

Anna: Yeah, yeah.

Juliet: Sounds like a lot to look forward to

Alfia: Yeah

Juliet: So how can people get involved?

Hayley: So check out the programme, port.ac.uk/globalweek. There’s a lot still happening. We have events this afternoon at half past five for Ramadan, the iftar, so that’s breaking fast. We have quite a few people signed up already but it’s open to everyone, it’s an open event so it’s open iftar even if you are not taking part in the fasting so come along if you are curious to know a bit about the culture and things like that, you want to meet people, students, people in the community, everybody’s welcome to break fast at half past five in our chaplaincy. That’s happening this afternoon. And then we have the Festival of Cultures tomorrow so that’s in Ravelin Sports where there’ll be lots of stalls representing different countries.

Anna: Yeah

Hayley: Oh and we’ve got some language tasters still going on on Sunday 

Anna: Yeah

Hayley: Cornish, Welsh, so it’s all available to sign up for free online

Anna: Yeah, the whole programme is free.

Alfia: Perfect thank you both for joining us and for your hard work in organising such an 

important event. We students really, really look forward try out.

Juliet: Thank you

Alfia: Thank you

Hayley: Thank you so much for having us

Anna: It’s really nice to be here!

 

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Juliet: So one event still to come is a puppet workshop with our very own Dr Matt Smith

 

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Rafid: Hello, my name is Rafid Mohammed, I’m here with Dr Matt Smith and what are what have you got with you today, Dr Matt?

Matt: So this is this is Humphrey, this is Humphrey, my Puppet and friend and colleague. I’m here because of Global Week and I’m doing a puppet workshop this Thursday at 3 o’clock till 5 o’clock and we;re doing the workshop here in our White Swan Studios. It’s open for anyone to come to, it’s specifically for adults because lots of adults are getting more and more interested in puppet shows, shows like Life of Pi, War Horse in this country have changed the landscape of puppetry, they’ve changed it’s now a mainstream art form in this country. My full job title which is quite long is Reader in Applied Theatre and Puppetry, so [pause] applied theatre is taking theatre out of the university and into the community, so every year I’m encouraging students to do workshops, work with community groups, do work in the community.

Puppetry is a global practice, there’s puppetry is a huge art form in places like Ukraine and the east of Europe, but puppetry’s roots are really not in Europe. There’s kind of like in other countries around the world and other sort of bits of the world, in Asia in particular, that’s where you find some of the oldest and greatest traditions of puppetry.

Rafid: Oh that’s brilliant

Matt: Yeah. I’m still working with colleagues in the Ukraine. So in Odessa there’s a puppet theatre in Odessa that’s been there since 1932 they’re still performing

Rafid: Oh that’s brilliant

Matt: It’s amazing, the country is at war but puppet theatre is really strong in that country, it’s a really hopeful story, and even when the bombs are dropping and they have to go down into the shelters a lot of puppeteers are going down with the puppets and carrying on making puppet shows for children who are traumatised by the way, So it’s an amazing thing when I discovered that in terms of working with colleagues in the Ukraine, having the opportunity to talk to them about how they work.

These puppets behind us are all from a show that’s a current show that I’m doing with a colleague in illustration called Louis Netter.

Humphrey is animated almost like a doll so he can [pause] move around and take focus.

Jack the Sailor as you can see he’s quire rough around the edges you know what I mean.

Rafid: He’s seen some things

Matt: Yeah and he through the whole show that he’s in he’s drunk. You’re not always sure whether what he’s saying is the truth or not.

Rafid: I think we can all relate with [laughs]

Matt: Yeah! [laughs]

Matt: And this cat is demonic. Louis Netter designed this head and then |I made the really scruffy odd body and the point with puppets, if there’s any point that I would stress with how you make them, is they need to be able to move.

Rafid: Okay.

Matt: So that Rat, again same thing 3D printed head and scrappy kind of like body.

 

[pause]

 

Matt: We’ve now got one of our graduates working in one of the west end shows which is great. So we’ve got a student who’s in Madagascar the musical.

Rafid: That’s brilliant!

Matt: And he’s loving it and he’s really, really happy because he got to learn a bit of puppetry skills working with me before he was graduate and then he was a few years did a bit more training and then he now yeah he’s now he’s now full time working in the west end which is a dream of a lot of our students and a lot of people really so he’s doing it by being a puppeteer.

Rafid: So what are you expecting from this workshop this Thursday

Matt: The key thing with the workshop is just come and have fun and enjoy it. We’ll make some puppets, we’ll work with puppets, we’ll move puppets in terms of [pause] how how we can animate them how we can bring them to life simply and they can tell stories, and we'll just do some very very simple basic introductions into how to use puppets, because a lot of my work when I’m doing puppetry is not so much about how you make them uit;’s sometimes about how you animate them and how you just sensitively bring that thing to life and it kind of has a presence beyond us and that’s the sort of thing I’ll be training the the or working with the workshop participants in, but don’t you know they don’t need to worry too much, it’s not going to be like, you know, really that full on in terms of where we can take it, it’s just an introductory workshop but everyone will leave hopefully with a puppet that they've made.

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Rafid: Thank you very much dr matt smith and it’s been a brilliant time with you, I really hope everyone’s going to enjoy your workshop this Thursday, and I’ll be personally there hopefully. And see you all back at the studio, thank you very much for your time.

 

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Alfia: If you'd like to try your hand at puppetry, Matt’s puppetry workshop for adults is tomorrow at 3pm.

Juliet: Now let’s take a moment to recap some of the highlights from Global Week so far.

 

Alfia: We've had a few things, we’ve had ;language and culture taster sessions, walk on the beach with chips, okay. Joining us next is Dr Rebecca Janicker who’s been actively involved in Global Week. Welcome Rebecca.

Rebecca: Hello, thank you for having me.

Alfia: How are you doing?

Rebecca: Good thank you, excited to be here.

Juliet: Great to have you here. So please, could you tell us what your involvement with Global Week has been so far?

Rebecca: Well I am going to take part in a round table which will be online towards the end of the week so I’ve been organising that and speaking with colleagues who are based in Norway. So we’re going to be speaking about horror films and film festivals, people from СÀ¶ÊÓƵ and people from NTNU in Trondheim. 

Juliet: So how would you see the relationship between СÀ¶ÊÓƵ, NTNU and Ramaskrik came about.

Rebecca: Right, well there was an exciting opportunity to work on student exchange so some colleagues and I went over to Trondheim about a year ago, 

Juliet: Okay

Rebecca: And when we met we realised we had lots of interests in common, we were interested in film, media, that’s my subject area, and we were asked to go back to participate in a film festival event, a horror film festival as you say Ramaskrik, which takes place appropriately in the Autumn because that;s the spooky time of year, so we went along to kind of find out more about that we got the chance to be at the festival and really to think about all the exciting things that festivals can mean for scholars, students, and fans, particularly in that case of horror.

Juliet: So according to your perspective why would you say film festivals are important?

Rebecca: Yeah so film festivals are important because they provide great opportunities and they’re all about getting people together, so I’m, I teach film and I study film and you know I talk to students who are big fans of films and also people who are involved in making films and so festivals are this great chance for people to share what they’ve made, and opportunity to showcase films, you know their first screening often it’s a big chance to find out how audiences react to a film, and for people that are going to the festivals it means that opportunity to try new things and especially in a global context, yo know when I was back in the festival back in October time, there were films from you know all around the world, films from Norway, films from Spain, English language films, and people from all around the world kind of come to these things and get excited to talk to other fans and filmmakers.

Juliet: That sounds really interesting, I would love to go to one of them wouldn’t you Alfia?

Alfia: Yeah, for sure. So according to you what is the appeal of the horror genre?

Rebecca: Yeah good question. [pause] I mean, horror is my research interest, and it’s something that I've taught for a good few years. I think horror’s really interesting, it gets quite a big response from people so sometimes people say ‘Oh, I love that kind of thing’, others say ‘Oh I don’t like it’. You get them talking, some things people like more than others, some people are okay with monsters and other people find those a bit unsettling, you know. You go to a festival like that and it’s interesting to see the different things that people are watching and especially when you get films from all around the world, you get the chance to experience these different sort of things, and that’s really intriguing. I think most people have a kind of emotional connection with that genre, and it’s fun to talk to people about that.

Alfia: True. So why do people go to horror film festivals?

Rebecca: I think that one of the most important things about horror is it’s communal aspect, so lots of people will grow up thinking and talking about spooky stories and then I often find talking to people that you know they might go to the cinema to see horror films and often they’ll go with their mates and I’ll talk to students and they’ll say ‘yeah you know I go with my friends’ and if you go to see a screening of something whether it’s at a festival or at the cinema or even just around your own home you’ve got a lot of people gathered round together you can feel that atmosphere you know people will react to things you know they’ll be squeaking and jumping and all that kind of thing for you know the different experiences that horror offers. And then of course festivals offer that chance for other things like talks, and you know meet directors, and so on afterwards.

Alfia: That’s true. Thank you so much Rebecca for sharing your insights with us today, it was lovely having you here.

Juliet: Absolutely lovely meeting you, thank you so much.

[pause]

Juliet: Now, let’s take a look at some of the global placements our students have been involved in.

 

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Reuben: My name is Reuben Batalha, I’m originally from Portugal, Portuguese parents, and I studied Creative Media Technologies.

Thomas. My name is Thomas, I study Film Production at the СÀ¶ÊÓƵ and I’m from Watford.

Elizabeth: My name is Elizabeth Ajayi, I was born in Italy and I study Architecture adt the СÀ¶ÊÓƵ.

Reuben: So I work for Avanti West Coast, they run train services across the west coast main line. What I do specifically, I work within the direct retailing train, so basically the whole tram itself takes charge of ticket vending machines and the mobile app that we have in both android and iOS.

Thomas: So I work in the US Sales team. I work in the editing side so I work with the video content expert who kind of oversees what I edit in a day.

Reuben: Creative Careers face me a lot of support, you know, looking at my CV, giving me advice. Creative Careers really like guides you, they give you suggestions of how you can improve your CV and your cover letter as well.

Elizabeth: The Creative Carers department supported me throughout this placement finding process. I work for the House of Commons and specifically I work within the project delivery team. My role as a student project leader involves assisting my team with procuring bits of software that they may need, collating presentations has been really exciting.

Thomas: It gives you the time to understand what you want with a cartier and having this, like, extra year with this extra time and definitely even cement passions that you already have for a certain part of your studies.

Reuben: A lot of my tutors and lecturers helped me as in terms of you know my CV and not only that but motivation. The placement application process can be quite lengthy and when you start getting some rejections, because it is a really competitive market, they help you with motivation and they push you to keep going and they really just help you push through.

Thomas: At first it’s quite a jump because you're a bit of a stranger but myself I really enjoyed it, I like travelling. It felt quite natural, something I was excited to do..

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Elizabeth: I’m 100% satisfied that I’ve gone onto a placement year, I think it has met all my expectations. I’ve been able to prepare myself for the last year of my degree while also collecting so many useful experiences that I would have never have if I didn’t go on placement.

Reuben: There’s so many benefits to doing a placement. It builds your confidence, it builds your skills, it builds your knowledge on what you want to do and it helps you sort of discover yourself.

 

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Alfia: It's incredible to see our students making a difference on a global scale. 

Juliet: And there’s still so much more to come. Tomorrow we have the special performance showcase in the Students’ Union. We sent Rafid Mohammed back to the White Swan to meet with Ritah Namagandah who will be one of the performers.

 

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Rafid: We are very lucky to have Ritah with us in the studio today. Ritah’s a dance instructor and student here at the СÀ¶ÊÓƵ, and she’s performing in the Global Week showcase tomorrow in the evening. So Ritah, how long have you been dancing?

Ritah: Since I was 13? [pause] Yeah, yeah I was 13 and then I we had a birthday party, my aunt said ‘oh, you can actually dance’, and it never left me. [laughs]

Rafid: [laughs] Oh that's great, that’s great. So Global Week is more of a celebration of culture, so do you believe or how do you believe that global like dancing connects you to culture of your students to the culture.

Ritah: Dancing is a way I express myself, when I am sad I dance to be happy, even when I am happy I just dance to continue being happy [laughs]

Rafid: [laughs]

Ritah: It’s a very culture it’s a thing that’s rooted within our culture, especially where I come from, from Uganda, we use dance we have a dance for weddings, we have a dance for funerals, we have a dance for um courting, courtship and everything so when I’m in СÀ¶ÊÓƵ equally I try to pass that along to my to the people in my society and they are very receptive of that as well, and one of the things like I we use it for is to connect our cultures with different cultures cos when you understand [pause] other people and where they come from you become a global citizen and it also creates harmonious living, so to speak. 

So one of the things we really proud of that we’ve done is collaborated with Mary Rose Academy, which is a school that takes care of children who need more medical attention, yeah, and they don’t have the opportunity to go and see life performances of even participate in the creative arts, performing arts, so to speak, so we put on a show for them on their mother language day and showed them a few dances from South Africa and showed them how we use it to communicate and connect with people and they were really inspired by it. This one child he didn’t really know what we were doing but he saw us dancing and then he started replicating the same movement, it was so heart-warming, and then thereafter they went ahead and participated in Dance Live, which is an annual showcase that happens at the Guildhall Office but like and and they sent us [smiles] I should have shown you we have pictures, like they made customised cards for us to say thank you for taking our culture with them, that was reality nice. 

So in the same spirit, I hope that’s what people see when they come to watch the performances at Global Week.

 

Rafid: It’s really great to be joined today by three of Ritah’s foundation dance students from the Afro Fusion Society of the University. She is going to take them through some dance routines, so let us welcome Mel, Ari, and Lynne.

 

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Juliet: So you all have a chance to see Ritah and many others performing from 6pm till 7pm tomorrow night at the Third Space in the Student’s Union, and there’s no need to book.

Alfia: A big thank you to everyone who’s been involved in making Global Week such a success. 

Juliet: Our special thanks to our guests on today’s show: Anna Vaernes…

Anna:  [waves]

Juliet: Hayley Wheeler

Hayley: [waves]

Alfia: Dr Matt Smith and Humphrey… [pause]

Juliet: Dr Rebecca Janiker [pause] and Ritah Namagandah.

Alfia: Thank you for joining us today on this extraordinary journey through Global Week. Remember the main programme can be seen at www.port.ac.uk/globalweek. Thank you all for watching. Take care and embrace the diversity around you.

All: Goodbye! [waves]

 

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