For a first time in the history of Bath Spa University, The Global Culture Campaign has been running by the International Students’ Officer of Students’ Union of Bath Spa University, Sharareh Houshmandyar who is in charge of globalisation of BSU. The aims of this campaign/society are introducing differences in cultures, promoting culture diversity, integration Non-UK Students with home students, and uniting of different group of societies such as Black Students, Dance and religion society.
This Global Culture Campaign has achieved an admirable achievement as the heads of Bath Spa University schools and students’ feedback shows how much this campaign has been useful for all students and university perspective. For example, many home students have had a chance to meet and make new friends from the variety nationalities and they have been able to understood the principles of differences in cultures as well as learning the beauty of other multiplicity countries.
The Global Culture campaign did run different exciting events during 2010-2011. For instance:
1. Each month the bar based in the Students’ Union of Bath Spa offered international foods on be half of The Global Culture Campaign.
2. Fundraising for providing coaches for attending to the National Demonstration since Bath Spa University Students’ Union had difficulty to get fund for supplying buses to go to London for NUS Protest March against the increase of the fees. The Global Culture Campaign run a full day fundraising event by writing people’s name in different languages such as: Persian, Chinese, Greek, Korean, Czech, French and Finish. This campaign did raise more than 97 pounds, which were adequate for having the buses for going to London demonstration.
3. Two Global Parties were run by the Global Team members, which consist of both Home and Non-UK Students. In these events, different aspect of countries culture performance was presented, such as Latin American, Chinese lion Dance, Live Human Beat Box. In addition, international foods such as Iranian, Nigerian, Chinese, and Malaysian had been offered to the guests in the events. This campaign had honoured to host two outstanding speakers in one of this event whom were, The Mayor of Bath and The Current NUS Black Students’ Officer, who came to this event for supporting this global movement. The outcome of these events was more than 150 pounds, which was donated to Water Aid Charity in Africa.
4. Global Culture Team members hold the Celebration of Chinese New Year at the Museum of East Asian for Bath Citizens based on Somerset place, in order to introduce the Chinese Culture to people.
5. Global Culture Team members hold the Celebration of Persian New Year at the Campus of Bath Spa University, in order to introduce the Persian Culture to all students at BSU.
6. Global Culture Team hold a full day fundraising for Japanese Earthquake, by selling Japanese Tea. The outcome of this fund-raising was more than 120 pounds.
7. Each month, Global Gathering meetings were hold for both UK and Non-UK students for socialising.
On 25th of Jun 2011, Sharareh Houshmandyar, The current International Students’ Officer of Bath Spa University would like to thank all people who helped her for internationalising Bath Spa University. This event was called “The Global Culture Awards”. In this event, Global Culture campaign does award not only volunteer students but also academic and administrative staff who contribute their admirable help towards the aims of this campaign. In addition, three wonderful NUS Representatives attend to this Awards’ Ceremony and they gave the most inspirational speech to audiences as well as award some awards to students and staff.
These NUS representative were:
· Usman Ali: The VP Higher Education of NUS
· Kanja Sesay: The NUS Black Students’ Officer
· Christina Yan Zhang: The NUS International Students’ Officer
Sharareh Houshmandyar empahsized that” I would like to thank all of people who helped me for this campaign and I would like to send my special thanks to the the three NUS representatives (Usman, Kanja and Christina) who were supporting and standing with me in any situation shoulder with shoulder with the bottom of their heart”
This campaign will be continued by Bath Spa University International Students’ Officer with her global team for the coming academic year at this institution of higher education.
An article regarding to this Awards’ Ceremony would be published on local newspaper of Bath.