International, intercultural, interdisciplinary

Hello all!

I've already written about my experiences with ERASMUS+ After Degree Programme, and about a scholarship at Nazareth College, Rochester, New York. Only one scholarship is left to talk about, which was part of Erasmus, but its full name is International Course on Health Care Issues (ICHCI), organized by Cohehre Academy. I attended the fourth ICHCI in April, 2014.

This programme is dedicated to healthcare students studying at faculties of health sciences. It's a professional 2 week course, after which the participants get credits, a grade and a certification. ICHCI programmes are organized Worldwide, since now Budapest (Semmelweis University), Helsinki (Metropolia University), Gent (Arthevelde Hogeschool), Porto (Univeristy of Porto), Barcelona (Vic University), Talinn (University of Health Care), Rotterdam (University of Health Sciences), Scotland (University of the West of Scotland) were host institutions of the course. ICHCI is interdisciplinary, intercultural and international.

ICHCI is a short-term Erasmus lasting for only 2-3 weeks, so missing from school, and skipping and losing the semester is not an excuse in this case. About application: my university sent each student an e-mail in February, that there’s a possibility to travel abroad for groups formed by 4-5 people, to attend health-care related interactive courses and work on projects.

The topics of the courses we could choose between were: Active aging (Rotterdam), Combating risk behavior among youngsters (Helsinki), Enabling client responsibility in health care (Setubal), Poverty and Social Exclusion (Gent). Speech therapists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, nurses, midwifes, dieticians, cardiopneumologists studying at COHEHRE-member Universities could apply. Only an English CV and a cover letter was required, and those who got admitted, had to present themselves at an interview facing some personality-oriented questions. I was asked about my ambitions, goals, and about which programme and country I will prefer the most. However, I didn't reach enough points to get admitted to the desired programme at Rotterdam, the admission process was flexible, and I was given another offer from the University, whether it would be ok, I would have to go to Finland with another programme. Without thinking a moment I accepted the challenge, of course! And this way started the journey to Finland.

The admitted students were financially supported by the home-university, and had to pay independently only 120-150 EUR for 2 weeks. It was worth it!

ICHCI programmes require as pre-work a mini research in participants' home countries. My team (formed of 2 nurses, 1 midwife, 1 dietician and me-the physiotherapist student) had to do a research in Hungary about the youngsters' risk behavior. We created a presentation about our statistics and presented it in Finland in front of a big audience formed by other students and their teachers. We also listened to their statistics and informations about their countries' risk behavior. During the mobility we had other several tasks too. We had to go to courses, workshops, discussions and also got to write homeworks sometimes. The final assessment was a group-work. Groups were formed by people from different countries, who were studying different disciplines. My group was formed by Portuguese nurses, Dutch speech therapists, Spanish nurses and Scottish midwives. Our task in the two weeks was to create an informative and at the same time entertaining board-game for youngsters, which raises attention and awareness, and has a big role in preventing irresponsibility and risk behavior.

Near these "student-tasks" we had to hold an international evening for the guests, presenting our country, our traditions, showing foods and "Hungaricums". We created a quiz about Hungary, this way the show was interactive. Others proceeded the same.

With more details of the programme, costs, information about accommodation and schedule I'll write in my following post.

P. s. Sorry for the quality of the pictures, I'm not a professional photographer.

Thanks for reading, Dóra.

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