EUniWell Student Board experience of Rectors Assembly and Mental Health Symposium
The EUniWell Student Board was invited to attend the Rectors’ Assembly and Mental Health Symposium in Budapest from 13 to 16 October 2022. The Student Board delegation joined the Closed Session of the Rectors' Assembly to discuss the challenges we face as general students and student representatives in EUniWell. These challenges were identified during the team building event in Cologne a few weeks ago.
The Student Board additionally attended a workshop with the Management Team of EUniWell. The common challenge several partner universities face is that it is difficult to reach out to students at each partner university and get them involved in the EUniWell. This became the main topic when the Student Board engaged in the discussion.
Over the next two days the EUniWell Mental Health Symposium (MHS) was held. Combining different communicative formats including sessions, workshops and roundtables on-site and in Zoom, the MHS team offered a hybrid and informative symposium to all attendees. The roundtable gave an opportunity where all students could exchange personal experiences and students’ perspectives on topics such as the impact on youth during the pandemic and the importance of professional competencies for teachers and so on. The conversation with Tangelia "Dr. WorthIt" Terrell turned out to be the pinnacle of the whole event. When she shared her family's tragic past, many people present were touched and empathised deeply.
In the brainstorming sessions, which were the last activities of the symposium, each group created quite a lot of suggestions and solutions to the problems and challenges that were identified during the previous discussions. These would be the next steps in how to improve and develop an awareness of the importance of mental health as well as how to implement it in many aspects of EUniWell and its partnering universities.
Author: ‘Cassie’ Xuan Dong, Linnaeus University student and EUniWell student board representative
Editor and photo: Lali Lindell, Linnaeus University
