Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Social Care, Justice and Recovery degree students take a global perspective on refugees in Europe
Developing global perspectives
Towards the end of the first semester, with students in full force researching and writing to submit their first assessments of the academic year, a number of final year students from the Social Care, Justice and Recovery degree programme, as part of their Global Practitioner module, participated in a mini–Model United Nations (MUN) session in their seminars.
A simulation of how a real session would look like in Brussels, students had to research ‘how to manage the refugee crisis in Europe’ for a sitting in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The Global Practitioner module covers some of the key mainstream global issues within the context of globalisation. Topics ranged from environmental justice, poverty and famine, food security and migration, HIV to media narratives.
Making complex decisions
Students are expected not only to develop an understanding of several global issues but also bring out the North/South global dynamics. Getting the students to represent a country, and then to research and present their findings to simulate a UNHCR session, was great way to see how globalisation and North/South linkages play a role in international decision-making.
This presented a unique way to realise how difficult it can be to make decisions in a group setting which have a range of competing perspectives and experiences. The skills developed in such an activity also prepares our future practitioners on how to be increasingly empathetic, and the importance of negotiation.
As immigration into the UK is a salient and contemporary issue, our students had the opportunity to explore how the migration situation is unfolding in countries such as France, Turkey, Libya, Syria, Germany and Poland too. It was very interesting to observe how students realised the complexities and non-mainstream details about the role countries are playing.
A 'rewarding' experience
Karen Mapisa, one of the students “found this session very rewarding and would love to participate in the real thing one day.”
Students were role-playing powerful positions, representing a number of countries. Another student, Nicole Moustache said “Sitting there and acting as a Foreign Minister for France created an exciting and involved session, and I thought how great it would be to have that level of power one day.”
We are hoping to continue and develop a MUN style activity for final year students next year. Moving forward we are hoping to organise this mid-term which will give students a few weeks to research their country-specific details and as a result will pave the way for more very lively debates.
Learn more about our Social Care, Justice and Recovery degreeÂ
Shahab Adris
Shahab teaches on several undergraduate modules in the School of Health with a focus on social justice, politics, community development, volunteering, and what it means to be a global practitioner.
