EIL Intercultural Learning

Bonn City Council and the University of Bonn, together with our German partner organisation Experiment eV, provided 8 fully-funded places for Irish nursing students, or students of other health care disciplines at the seminar on the theme ‘Intercultural Aspects of Healthcare’. The seminar took place in Bonn from 14th - 20th June 2009.

Among the eight participants was Caroline Hickey. This is her report on the Health Summer Camp.

"On Sunday 14th of June 2009 I arrived in Bonn and along with the other two Irish girls (Emma and Niamh) we went to klinikumbonn University. We were greeted by several of the Germans. Initially we thought there would be a huge language barrier however our fear was shortly over come. Despite all of us (the Irish students) having little to no German, we still bonded with the German’s extremely well. By the end of the week it felt as if we had known the German’s for years on end and that we had made lifelong friends.
The summer camp was balanced extremely well, in the morning the talks were extremely interesting, especially the talk on HIV/AIDS. Despite HIV/AIDS being a huge global problem, I had never studied it in much detail in school or in college and therefore found it fascinating.
As there was only a small group of us attending the summer camp, it allowed us to ask the lecturers many questions without feeling ill at ease. I also found it very interesting hearing the different thoughts of the other students on the camp. The talk on Tuesday which was in relation to a midwife working with women of a migration background wasn’t as good as I had hoped as there was a language barrier between us the Irish and the lecturer giving the talk. As the lecturer only spoke German, Nino and Anna had to translate what she was saying every few minutes. Despite the lecturer’s points being of interest, it was hard to maintain good concentration levels and interest when you were only listening to half of what she was saying or in fact only what Anna and Nino were saying. On Thursday morning we had a talk on the comeback of Tbc. In my opinion I believe this was another extremely good talk. A few years ago there was a huge break out of TB in a crèche in Cork and therefore the TB vaccination has been in the media a lot ever since.
Without a doubt the Germans were very accommodative and friendly. During the afternoons they took us on trips around the city for example they showed us the cathedrals in Bonn and Cologne. Towards the end of the week when we had to do some shopping for our relatives at home they brought us around the town and showed us where the various shops were located. On the final evening one of the German students even invited us back to his house and gave us a tour of his house. Undoubtedly if the German student’s hadn’t been as friendly and nice our stay in Germany wouldn’t have been as enjoyable.
From the moment we walked into the Dining room on the Sunday until the minute we departed for the last time on the Saturday our stay was to the highest possible standard. The food was delicious and despite some people not being too fond on the whole tent idea initially, the beds were very comfy!  The games Nino and Anna played with us were funny but at the same time had a hidden meaning to them which we could all relate to our career or studies.  The buses and train services were all very reliable so we knew if we wanted to be in Cologne (for example) by a certain time, we would actually reach there on time.
For future years I would advise the organisers to have more lectures or talks on global issues for example obesity, cancer research etc. Some of the talks such as Bonn Medical Partners I believe didn’t benefit me as much. This was particularly evident in the talk about the Arabs coming to Germany for procedures and treatment. During the talk I got the impression thousands of Arabs went to the country each year however when I questioned the lecturer I was told only 10-15 people would go on an annual basis. I think a lot of the summer camp attendees and myself were shocked at how small the figure was after they had spent so long talking about it.
The afternoon tours which were organised for us were extremely good! None of the Irish had been to Bonn before and I believe the city sight seeing tour was a great way to introduce us to the city without bombarding us with information at the same time!  The tour guide was very interesting and told us many interesting facts, for example I was unaware Beethoven was born in Bonn! On the second day the trip to the UN campus was also really interesting and the views at the top of the building were truly spectacular! The final excursion that was organised for us was the one in “Deutsche Welle”. Our tour guide was once again very friendly and very informative. The guided tour we got was such a highlight for us!
I believe the duration of the health summer camp was just right, a day or two less would have made the trip too short and if it was a day or two longer perhaps it might have started to drag on for some. I would like to thank all that were involved in organising this wonderful trip for us and I hope we shall see all of you here in Ireland next year!"