Placing value on a different social network
by Vincent Ciccarello
A trailblazing exchange program is recasting the traditional view of Australia as a one-way education destination for Indian IT and engineering students.
The reciprocal bilateral partnership jointly run over the past three years by UniSA’s School of Social Work and Social Policy (SWSP) and India’s Madras Christian College (MCC), allows social work students to undertake courses and find fieldwork education placements with welfare agencies in the other’s country. It also involves exchanges between the academic staff.
The latest cohort of MCC students - Gopal, Chiru, Naavarasu, Chrys and Praisey - was in Adelaide from July to December last year.
The students returned home to Chennai, India’s fourth largest city, with a renewed enthusiasm for their career prospects in social work – a field that has been slowly gaining legitimacy in India in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami.
Naavarasu and Chiru, who helped to support full-time carers of frail and aged people at the Northern Carers Network in Davoren Park, said Australia’s welfare agencies are more systematised than these in India.
"The system of Australian NGOs is good in the way it addresses the needs of the client," Naavarasu said.
"In India, the system is more service than client-oriented. Also, the confidentiality of the client is very important here. Agencies respect the individual’s dignity and uniqueness."
As if finding her own way in a new country wasn’t enough, Praisey helped African refugees and other new arrivals by making them aware of the resources available to them, building a good rapport and assisting the Refugee Inclusion Officer. She also worked with young mums suffering postnatal depression and their kids at Uniting Care Wesley’s Seaton Central.
She and Chrys, who also worked at Seaton Central and a local primary school, observed that when it comes to the social development of children, things are sometimes done quite differently here.
Gopal’s placement at the Alberton Primary School, where 60 per cent of students are from an Indigenous background, exposed him to the problems facing some school-age Australian children.
"Some of their parents are drug users. One boy doesn’t have a dad and desperately needed a male role model. Others have ADHD," Gopal said. "I was involved in various group activites and counselling sessions to help students address some of these problems."
The overwhelming reaction of the MCC students to the exchange was that they recognised every country has its own problems. While they were impressed by Australia’s multiculturalism, they were troubled by elements of racism and the isolation of people without a family support network.
"We’re now able to see the problems in India from a global perspective. The positive experiences we can take back home; the negative experiences act as a warning of what not to do in India," Gopal said.
The field placement not only gave the students a chance to learn something about Australia but also the opportunity to teach others about India.
"This program has given us a chance to promote our own country," Praisey said. "We have shared so much about India. It’s been a proper exchange, of ideas and of cultures."
SWSP lecturer Dr Kris Ryan said the visiting students passed with flying colours.
"This year a further six MCC students are expected to undertake studies and fieldwork here," she said. "And at least two UniSA SWSP students have expressed interest to undertake fieldwork placements through MCC."