Tag: Anne Fox

Intentional travel +++ Beyond the shores +++ Tamara Walker +++ absolutely intercultural 296 +++

How do you travel? Intentionally? In today’s show we are going to once again be hearing about how the need to belong can lead to people migrating to another country. In this case it will be about African Americans who had very strong reasons for feeling that only by moving to another country could they become their true selves.

That of course, was because of racial segregation in the US that was implemented after the abolition of slavery, and that is still felt today, for example as an effect from land zoning.

Welcome to Absolutely Intercultural show number 296. My name’s Anne Fox and this show is coming to you from me in Denmark and from Germany, where Oljana helped plan and carry out the interview.

One of the main themes in this show is about intentional travel:

Our guest today is Dr Tamara J Walker, a professor of history at Colombia University, who recently wrote a book about this movement of African Americans out of the US. The book is Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad and it’s a great read, full of information you probably didn’t know such as the story of the agricultural graduates who went to Uzbekistan in the Soviet Union where their skills were much better appreciated than back home in the US.

In this show, we’ll be hearing more about the book and how Tamara’s early opportunities to travel led her to write it, combining history with her own family story. We’ll also hear how her The Wandering Scholar scheme helps high schoolers explore opportunities inspired by Tamara’s transformative early travel experiences.

So let’s start the show by finding out more about Tamara’s book, Beyond the Shores. The book intertwines Tamara’s own history which explains how she came to be a historian at Columbia University and we hear later what she is doing to open up opportunities for others with her background.

The book begins in the theatres of Paris in the 1920s to talk not so much of Josephine Baker, who is a well-known name, but of Florence Mills whose story did not end so well. Let’s go absolutely historical with Oljana.

absolutely historical
Both Oljana and I had the chance to read the book and found it really interesting. I was intrigued about the last chapter which made the point about travelling absolutely intentionally.

absolutely intentionally
If you are travelling right now, maybe you could think about how to find out more about the new place you are in and how it got to be how it is now? For example in Pairs with Black Paris Tours.

absolutely transformative
As a way of giving young Americans the opportunities that she had, Tamara and a colleague have set up an initiative called Wandering Scholar. Let’s go absolutely transformative!

What about you? Do you travel intentionally? Could you imagine how your next trip would change to become more intentional? Have you already had a transformative travel experience? Maybe we could tell your story in a future show?

And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook .

Catch us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify? You can subscribe to us there for free and give us a rating and a comment.

The next show will be coming to you from Germany with Laurent Borgmann on the 2nd of August.

Until then – stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Anne Fox

Interviewer Oljana Haskja

Belonging +++ work-life balance +++ Denmark +++ Hungary +++ absolutely intercultural 294 +++

In the last show we heard about different types of freedom and in this show, 294, we will continue this theme and find out how lack of freedom can drive someone to leave their country.

Also, in this show we’ll be looking beyond the Erasmus semester abroad, at what can happen when you aim to relocate to a new country permanently. Your head or your heart? Which will win?

We’ll end with a very important problem which Danish leaders often overlook. But is it just Danish leaders?

My name’s Anne Fox and this show is coming to you from Denmark, which is where today’s guest, Dora, decided to relocate to from Hungary. Dora is a coach and therapist and has noticed that, while the headline advantages of coming to Denmark to live are fairly well known globally, there is a downside, that Dora calls “killing me softly”.

But is this show all doom and gloom? No! We will finish with a very simple piece of advice that Dora has for Danish leaders, but which I think is very good advice for everyone.

Today I am talking with Dora Hegedus who runs a coaching company, called Your Thinking Partner, in Denmark. Dora will tell us why she felt that she and her family should leave Hungary, even though she was already in her fifties when they decided to make the move.

absolutely killing me softly
But first we’ll find out why the famed work-life balance of working in Denmark is not enough and how Danish leaders are losing their new international employees through careless inattention to one critical factor. What Dora might call, absolutely killing me softly.

absolutely ready to leave
So a sense of belonging is critical to being able to take full advantage of the freedoms of Denmark and in our next segment we will hear how it was this sense of belonging that Dora felt slipping away in her native Hungary. Hear how Dora felt increasingly alienated as we go absolutely ready to leave.

absolutely helpful
Now we don’t want to leave you with the feeling that Denmark is a hopeless case for internationals. It is clearly working for Dora. So here is one last piece of advice that Dora has for Danish leaders on how to retain their foreign staff. Let’s go absolutely helpful.

So that’s it! Ask your foreign colleagues if they need help. Advice which I am sure would bear fruit everywhere, not just Denmark. What do you think? What’s the best way of helping people feel they belong in your country?

Share your story with us via comment or email, and you could feature in one of our upcoming shows. For more information and previous episodes, explore our website.

And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook too.

By the way, did you know we are also on Apple Podcasts and Spotify? You can subscribe to us there for free and give us a rating and a comment.

The next show will be coming to you from Germany with Laurent Borgmann on the 7^th of June.

Until then – stay tuned to your international colleagues!

The host of this show is: Anne Fox

Online learning+++ NILE +++Absolutely Intercultural 292+++

Norwich Institute of Learning Education — Norwich Institute for Language Education

Welcome to Absolutely Intercultural show number 292 on World Futures Day. My name’s Anne Fox and this show is coming to you from Denmark, but when you’re online, does it matter where I am? In this show we’ll be looking at some of the issues that can happen in online courses. Yes, believe it or not, online learning existed long before the Covid 19 pandemic and for this show I decided to ask some of my colleagues at NILE in Norwich about some of the things that can happen when you are teaching online.
We’ll hear from Robert about a joke gone wrong, from Eva about how to organise a mixed gender group so that the genders are never mixed and what happened in Neil’s Zoom session that so upset the rest of the group?

absolutely separate

So let’s start with Eva and go absolutely separate about how to organise a mixed gender group so that the genders are never mixed.

absolutely funny

In our next segment we’ll be talking to Robert about something that he experienced when he was facilitating a very diverse group from around the world. Is it absolutely funny?

absolutely real

And in our final segment, we’ll meet Neil who lives in Spain and works for NILE teaching aviation English where we’ll learn how online learning can be absolutely real. But first the dilemma of adjusting meetings to meet other cultural norms.

Neil’s story about his student in Kiev reminds me that this week on several TV stations simultaneously, a new series called “In her Car” tells the story of a Ukrainian woman who volunteers to drive people in Ukraine during the current conflict.

If you have any stories about intercultural challenges with online learning then let us know here on the blog in a comment.

And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook too.

By the way, did you know we are also on Apple Podcasts and now Spotify? You can subscribe to us there for free and give us a rating and a comment.

The next show will be coming to you from Germany with Laurent Borgmann on the 5^th of April.

Until then – stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Anne Fox

Futures Studies +++ Georgia +++ India +++ Absolutely Intercultural 291 +++

Image of hiker in misty mountains from Pixabay — Stereotypical image of future

Imagine the future. What do you see? I think I could safely bet a lot of money that what you’re seeing now in your mind involves high tech, humanoid robots, and metallic high-rise cities! Can we be more imaginative about the future? And how do you see your personal future? Welcome to show 291 of Absolutely Intercultural coming to you from Denmark. My name’s Anne Fox and in this show we’re going to talk about the future, or rather, futures. Futures?

absolutely plausible

We’ll start with finding out more about what Futures Studies is, or are, by talking to Thor Svanholm Gustavson of the Copenhagen Futures Studies Institute and no, it’s not about predicting the future but about the possible, the preferred and the absolutely plausible. So what are Futures Studies?

absolutely specific

Thinking about the future is good for societies but let’s explore the personal level. Now let’s be absolutely specific and find out what Viktoria from Georgia told Mariam about her views of her future.

absolutely educational

In our next segment we hear again from Thor in Copenhagen. Let’s go absolutely educational and find out why Futures Studies should be on the school timetable. Thor’s final point makes me want to run a competition to draw a vision of the future that doesn’t include high tech, robots and flying cars. But maybe that’s for the future…

absolutely predictable

Now we’ll hear from Raj, from India, about the role of parents in writing their children’s future. There’s a clear example of the present influencing the future when Raj goes back to India and aims to promote sustainability.

So who’s writing the story about your future? You? Your parents? Society? Do you feel limited by the number of futures that are presented to you or do you, on the other hand have too many possible futures and you need to start thinking about your preferred future? What pictures of the future do you have? Are they all high tech? You can let us know here on the blog at absolutely-intercultural.com where we have links from the organisations mentioned in the show.

And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook too.

Thanks to Mariam for interviewing our two RheinAhr Campus students.

By the way, did you know we are also on Apple Podcasts and now Spotify? You can subscribe to us there for free and give us a rating and a comment.

And talking about predicting the future it is very likely that the next show will be coming to you from me in Denmark on March 1 which by sheer coincidence is World Futures Day!

Until then – stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Anne Fox

Co-host: Mariam Bilge

Links mentioned in the show:

UNESCO https://www.unesco.org/en/futures-literacy

Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies https://cifs.dk/

Teach the Future https://www.teachthefuture.org/

Image: Pixabay

Hidden history +++ Our Story +++ Absolutely Intercultural 289 +++

Fatima Al-Fihri – founder of the first university in the world in Morocco

Welcome to show 289 of Absolutely Intercultural.

Did you know that the richest man who ever lived was an African from Mali in the fourteenth century whose wealth exceeded that of Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates put together?

Did you know that the first university in the world was not in Milan, Italy but in Morocco started by a female refugee, Fatima Al-Fihri?

In this show we’re going to find out more about a publishing company called Our Story aimed at young children and their teachers, and why this might help intercultural understanding.

My name’s Anne Fox and I’m based in Denmark and for this show I’m working with Mariam in Germany.

In this show we are going to meet Fahad Siddiqui, a Londoner, living in Brazil, who thinks that we should all know more these people who have faded from history.

absolutely historical

Let’s go absolutely historical and meet Fahad Siddiqui who created the Our Story company to share these stories with children.

absolutely multicultural

As well as being interesting in their own right, one of the aims of the Our Story materials is to introduce children to different cultures so let’s find out more about that and go absolutely multicultural with Mariam.

absolutely charitable

One of the features of the Our Story books is that every time you buy one of the books, the company makes a donation to the charity, CAMFED, which supports the education of girls in a selection of African countries. Let’s go absolutely charitable to find out how and why.

I loved finding out more about the many facets of the Our Story books and I know that our conversation left Mariam thinking hard about her home country of Georgia and whether there would be a candidate for one of the books from her cultural history. And maybe you know of one from your culture too?

Share your story with us via comment or email, and you might feature in one of our upcoming shows. For more information and previous episodes, visit our website at absolutely-intercultural.com. And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook too. 

By the way, did you know we are also on iTunes or Apple Podcasts? You can subscribe to us there for free and give us a rating and a comment.

Our next show will be coming to you on 5th January from Laurent Borgmann in Germany

Until then – stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Anne Fox

Co-host: Mariam Bilge

Why Denmark? +++ Iceland +++ South Africa +++ Masters +++ PhD +++ Absolutely Intercultural 287 +++

Welcome to Show 287 of Absolutely Intercultural coming to you from Denmark. My name’s Anne Fox and Denmark is where I have lived for almost thirty years. It is a small country of nearly 6 million people which has 8 universities. Compared to Germany’s 380, or the USA’s seemingly too many to count, but let’s settle for over 4000, eight Danish universities seems like a very small pool to choose from. So why would anybody come to Denmark for their university studies? This is what we’re going to find out in this show. We will be talking to Peter from South Africa who has a complex family history that is reflected in the languages spoken at home and Úlfar from Iceland who’s noticed something about Denmark.

absolutely uncertain

In our first segment, “absolutely uncertain”, let’s find out how Peter came to Denmark, to study in Danish, after being brought up in South Africa and having done his schooling in German.

absolutely engineered

In our next segment, “absolutely engineered”, let’s hear from Úlfar, an Icelander who had limited options for his Masters back in Iceland and chose Denmark.

So maybe small is beautiful after all. Family history and colonial ties seem to count greatly in addition to any global ranking that Danish universities may also have. Just for information DTU is number 165 globally or, when we’re talking specifically engineering and technology, 3rd after Stanford and MIT, while Copenhagen is 107 globally. And Iceland has seven universities which is only one less than Denmark, but it’s something to do with size! What about you? Did you ever consider studying in a small country like Denmark? Get in touch, feel free to share your unique story with us here on the podcast.

Write a comment or mail us, we could do a follow-up interview with you in one of our next shows. On our web page, absolutely-intercultural.com, you can get more information about this show and previous episodes, and you can leave comments. And if you enjoyed the show, please like us on Facebook too. 

By the way, did you know we are also on iTunes or Apple Podcasts? You can subscribe to us there for free and give us a rating and a comment.

Our next show will be coming to you on 3 November from Laurent Borgmann in Germany.

Until then, stay tuned!

The host of this show is: Anne Fox