Tag: University

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Summer Project is complete

The Bicycles Create Change 8-week Summer Program for 2016 is complete!!

 

Hooray!! After a very intense and rewarding 8 weeks, the Bicycles Create Change Summer Program has concluded! Congratulations to Sachie, Gabriel, Juliet and Mauricio for all their hard work, dedication and collaboration. So this completes the official structured course of our innovative 8-week Pilot Internship Program – which means we all get our Saturdays back!!

This Program was unique from other internships in many ways, primarily because the core program principles and design features were tailored to specifically meet the individual needs of each of the participants who have no prior Australian workplace experience. Fundamental to this program was developing more effective intercultural communication skills and competencies through collaboratively working with an array of professionals and locals so that students have a more authentic and meaningful experience of living and working in Australia. As we wrap up and reflect on the experience, the team has come up with eight key insights that they have identified as the main skill areas that they best connected with and improved throughout the program.

 

We learned a lot about ourselves, vocation skills and working in teams, with each member co-creating their own experience and unveiling differing outcomes, acuity and competencies. Today we discussed the valuable learnings and provided feedback for consideration regarding the impacts and challenges personally and those that are experienced by international students navigating connection and interaction in Australian workplaces. We came up with a number of suggestions to be more responsive to the helpful and hindering factors which international students encounter during their work – either at university or in the workplace.

Connections

It was very interesting hearing what the team had to say, saw how the internship was designed to highlight the importance and necessity of connections and working with experts/mentors. We discussed the usefulness and magnitude that working alone, in pairs and/or as a team of four had for the interns. With this understanding, they had a collective realization that collaboratively working with others was more than just a skill, but was also a powerful learning process and required co-creation. This was a revelation and (a now) imperative for a number of the students.

Weekly Tasks

Each week different tasks were set for the interns, which to complete successfully, relied on them to discern, practise and then reflect on the significance of effective team organisation, ability to spontaneously interactions with strangers, relating to clients, building rapport, running meetings, networking and partnerships.

Art Bikes

We still have some outstanding tasks like our public ART BIKE PRESENTATION held on Sunday 13th March at 10.30am at the Bethania Community Garden, Lota, Brisbane. Please come on down and join us if you are in the area! At this informal event, the team will each present their Art Bikes and discuss the social issue that it represents. We are looking forward to seeing some of the lovely people who donated the bike for this project there and it will be a great way to practice all the skills we have been working throughout the program.

Team Member Guest Blog Posts

As part of the Summer Program, each team member has also been researching 5 blog posts to be published on this blog. The content for each of these posts need to be sourced in their first-language – which means we can access information about bicycles project in other countries that we might not otherwise have access if they are not in English. These posts will be published later this year so keep an eye out for them!

 

For today – it is with relief and happiness that we conclude our official contact hours for this program. I am very proud of all the team members, mentors, supporters of this program and, of course the community who have helped and contributed as we progressed – Well done to all!!
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Bicycles Create Change Summer Program 2016

Today is the end of the first week of the Bicycles Create Change Summer Program. This inaugural internship is an 8 week collaborative skills development program, which is specifically tailor designed for – and with – four progressive international students from various linguistic and cultural backgrounds and study majors. The program has three main areas, namely, business project skills, general professional skills and an individual project (self-directed). It was a very busy first week and there are some very interesting outcomes, exchanges and reflections already.

 

Focus: This is an explorative and cooperative participant-focused program, with an emphasis on extending academic skills, developing professional business skills and fostering greater confidence and experience in each participant’s individual specific industry.

 

Rationale: Many students complete their academic bridging studies in December, waiting for 2 months until the end of February for Semester 1 to start. In most cases, this 8 week period is dead time – some go back home to visit family, but most others pass the summer waiting for Uni to go back – in both instances, English proficiency often declines significantly after such an extended break from set study routines. It is very difficult for international students to secure summer break paid work or internships. For the lucky few who do, the work is often menial, fastidiously supervised and devoid of the interns being afforded any genuine ownership and responsibility for the tasks undertaken. Inspired also by Sir Kenneth Robinson’s argument that education kills creativity, this program applies an almost action research element of reflection feedback into praxis loop.

 

The aim is that the participants have direct authority to generate their individual, pair and groups requirements to achieve each of the academic, professional and creative details. This is crucial so that students can have be able to demonstrate that they have experience with the top ten intern employability skills of reliability, willingness to develop new skills, consistency, dealing with constructive criticism, efficacious time management, ethical conduct, prioritising tasks effectively, displaying initiative/self-motivation, commitment to producing superior work and demonstrating professional behaviour (Gault, Leach & Duey, 2010).

 

Perspective: I wanted to look at what it would look like if interns were more directly responsible for the planning and management of their work experience program, so that there could be a move away from the ‘student/learning’ mindset, to better harness and capitalise on each participant’s professional skill and expertise. With this in mind, I designed a program matrix of tasks, processes and resources that gives prominence to enhancing “a greater awareness particularly of their leadership, project management, organisational and team working capabilities” (Jones & Warnock, 2015, p 212).

 

Participants: There are four participants for this program; Sachie – Liberal Arts undergraduate (Japan), Gabriel – Masters in Social Work (Cameroon), Mauricio – IT Masters (Colombia) and Juliet (India) who is undertaking a Masters in Special Education (Autism). I will post intermittent highlights as we progress and you can expect to see guest posts from the participants as they report on bicycle initiatives from their respective corners of the world.

 

This program is being modified and adapted as the each task is undertaken, completed, discussed and reflected on – with the focus being more on the critical reflection of the process. There is much still to plan, deliberate and connect for this program and it will continue to be a work in progress. It has been fascinating to see the solo and team progress, achievements and decisions made thus far already. Although time consuming and slightly stressful at times, it has already proven to be a very productive and gratifying enterprise and I am delighted with the participants’ enthusiasm, commitment and energy so far.

 

Bicycles Create Change: Summer Program
Source: Vehr Communications

 

Gault, J., Leach, E., & Duey, M. (2010). Effects of business internships on job marketability: The employers’ perspective. Education + Training, 52(1), 76-88. doi:10.1108/00400911011017690

Jones, H. M., & Warnock, L. J. (2015). When a PhD is not enough: A case study of a UK internship programme to enhance the employability of doctoral researchers. Higher Education, Skills and Work – Based Learning, 5(3), 212-227. doi:10.1108/HESWBL-05-2014-0013

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Bicycles Create Change Purpose

Essentially, the purpose of this blog is to identify, collate and share my critical ethnography research of International Aid Programs that give bicycles (in particular to girls) in order to bring about positive social change. I also want to see if such bike aid increases female participation in education. Ultimately, I am working towards exploring the stories of the lived experiences of female bike aid recipients in order to identify the functionality, outcomes and sustainability of these programs.

I aim to use this blog as a way of tracking and processing the initiatives, projects, research and ideas I consider during this exploration process.

A brief overview of previous relevant research.

NGOs supply bicycles to girls and women as a means of community development. Bicycles were hailed as a literal ‘vehicle for change’ (Furness, 2010; Walks, Siemiatycki & Smith, 2014).   Despite dwindling popularity, there are still a small number of NGOs dedicated to this initiative in operation. They include: Bike-Aid; Bike not Bombs and the Australian NGO, Bikes4Life. For example, World Bicycle Relief, have so far distributed 238,474 bicycles worldwide. Their Bicycles for Empowerment Project has donated 24, 212 bicycles of which 70% went specifically for girls to attend school. This project increased local academic performance by over 59% (World Bicycle Relief, 2015). Although momentum and publicity for Bike Aid have waned, Biketivism (Furness, 2005) projects and research initiatives are continuing to address equity issues (Wu, 2009; Bijker, 1997; Hanlon & Smart, 2008). There is an ongoing need to supply bicycles for vulnerable girls in order to provide opportunities for greater access to education (World Vision, 2015; Bianchini, 2015).

Objectives of the program of research investigation.

Initial research questions:

  • What are the current personal experiences and educational impacts for girls and women who are recipients of Bicycle Aid?
  • To what degree are female Bicycle Aid recipients included and consulted to achieve greater educational outcomes?
  • How can research insights be shared and applied to future projects in order to make Bike Aid programs more sustainable and effective in enhancing educational opportunities for girls?

This is the broad overview – but I am looking forward to seeing what Bike Aid projects are out there and how they have created change.

 

The next big adventure
The next big adventure

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Bijker, E. (1997). Of bicycles, bakelites, and bulbs: Toward a theory of sociotechnical change. USA: MIT Press.

Bianchini, J. (2015). A Bicycle Built for Two Billion: One Man’s Around the World Adventure in Search of Love, Compassion, and Connection. Ludela Press; USA.

Furness, Z. (2005). Biketivism and technology: Historical reflections and appropriations. Social epistemology, 19(4), 401-417.

Furness, Z. (2010). One Less Car: Bicycling and the politics of Automobility. Philadelphia, USA: Temple University Press.

Hanlon, J., & Smart, T. (2008). Do bicycles equal development in Mozambique? James Currey Publisher.

Stocker, R. (2012). Research Methods for Community Change: A project-based Approach. California, USA: Sage.

Walks, A., Siemiatycki, M., & Smith, M. (2014). 13 Political cycles. Driving Cities, Driving Inequality, Driving Politics: The Urban Political Economy and Ecology of Automobility: Driving Cities, Driving Inequality, Driving Politics, 237.

World Vision (2015, April) Bicycle for a girl. Retrieved 22 April, 2015, from http://donate.worldvision.org/ways-to-give/by-category/girls-women/bicycle-for-a-girl.

Webster, L., & Mertova, P. (2007). Using narrative inquiry as a research method: An introduction to using critical event narrative analysis in research on learning and teaching. New York; London: Routledge.

Wu, J. (2009). Bicycle-powered attachments: designing for developing countries. Massachusetts, USA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Retrieved from: http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/54536.