Today, we had an early morning taking the public buses over to Joseph Chamberlain College! To say this experience was life-changing is an understatement, and so far this has been my favorite part of the trip. We first started by getting all of our visitor passes for the morning, and I already felt very safe with the way their security was set up. There is only one entrance and exit for the college, and I really respect this concept because it is definitely easier to maintain who comes in and out of the building, and ensures safety for the students who go there as well.
After getting our passes, the group walked up some stairs and we were split into groups of two to go talk with some of the teachers that are at the college. My best friend Emily and I partnered up and had a good talk with a teacher about JCC’s main goals with teaching adult students who were either refugees or haven’t been given the same opportunities in another country to truly get an education. Our teacher seemed very passionate about her work and said her favorite part of her job is watching her students go from entry level 1 all the way through their college experience learning English and how to live more confidently after schooling.
We then walked to their older building that had a lot of the BTEC students there, which are students that are more focused on course work and assessment with breaking that language barrier rather than academics. When my small group walked into the classroom of adult students, their teacher Alan kindly greeted us while they were on the topic of equality and diversity. Before they could get back into the lesson, I raised my hand and was so curious about where everybody was from. There were individuals from Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Eritrea, and Bangladesh. All of them were so sweet and welcoming to us, and I was quite surprised considering Americans aren’t liked very much in the UK right now lol. After introducing ourselves, Alan went back into his lesson, and I immediately noticed how hard-working these individuals are, and how eager they were to understand what he was teaching them, which warmed my heart. He then passed out an example of an equality and diversity monitoring form, which asked multiple questions of boxes for them to check off, like a physical form we would fill out at the doctor’s office for example. I attached a picture of this paper he handed out:
Some major differences between these forms compared to the US is how inclusive the form was. Instead of it simply having a “white” box to check off, it gave multiple ethnicities of white, and I loved that because white is such a broad term when it comes to people and their ethnicity. Also, the form asking “Do you have caring responsibilities?” was genuinely so surprising to me considering I have never seen anything like that on a form in the US.
This experience was truly inspiring to me and felt like a breath of fresh air with how inclusive and supportive this country is with everybody, not just the white population. I couldn’t get a smile off my face from this new experience and it changed my perspective on how we should respect and treat one another, despite our differences.
After leaving, we went back to the main JCC and took a tour of the newer building. Walking around was so much fun, and it was so colorful and I loved seeing all the pretty artwork on the walls.
We headed to a room in the building where we had a brief lecture on JCC as a whole. I learned that 98% of their students are muslims and refugees who barely or don’t speak english at all, and to get a job in the UK, you need to be able to speak English. So these brave people came to this college with an idea of a better life, and I saw nothing but support from JCC to make sure these individuals can be successful for themselves and their families! Truly so inspiring to see how supportive the UK is for all people, especially those who were never given a true opportunity to have an education. Their college has a 99.2% A-level (a more academic level 3 qualification) pass rate, which is amazing! The WMCA in the UK funds JCC with around 2.6 million pounds a year so there’s no problem in giving these people a chance to learn! Courses are free for whoever enrolls, unless they earn over 30,000 pounds, which in that case they would have to pay some tuition. Even then, they said it would be an average 1,800 pounds to enroll, depending on which classes they want to take. JCC teaches adult learners how to meet local needs and also work around child care! For example, a muslim refugee by the name of Rasha was juggling study and childcare, so the college let her go to classes from 9:30-3, go pick her kids up from school, and allowed her to take online classes later in the day so she could take care of her family. She is now studying to be a nurse, and seeing how someone could go from barely speaking English to studying nursing is truly a remarkable amount of progress!
After talking about JCC, we left for a quick lunch at the south BCU campus. Our next lecture of the day was on the learning disability nursing field! This is the smallest nursing field, but these nurses strive to get better outcomes for these individuals who don’t have the ability to understand complex information or to learn new skills. These disabilities are developed from a range of things like trauma, child or sexual abuse, genetics, diseases during pregnancy, drugs, etc. 1.5 million people have a disability in the UK. The nurses, for example, break down tasks into little steps for trying to help expand and grow their patient’s abilities. Statistically in the UK, social classes 4 and 5 are more likely to have kids with learning disabilities in learning. We talked about some history of this field, including the asylum movement. Our presenters were so sweet and gave us a lot of information on this field, and I love how they emphasized family-centered care so much during the lecture.
Today was such a great experience! We ended the day early at the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham! ☺️
