UoH integrated students win trip to Bulgaria for deepening intercultural awareness, diversity

HYDERABAD: Students from the Integrated Master's course at the University of Hyderabad (UoH), N. Sanjeevini, Mohammed Naseeh, and V. Lasya Priya, won the Digital Storytelling competition held by the European Union-supported Harmony Project on Internationalisation at UoH.

The students submitted a total of 16 entries under the heading "youth, intercultural awareness, and cultural diversity.''

The three selected students will attend a two-week 'boot camp' on intercultural awareness and cultural diversity (IACD) sponsored by Varna University of Management (VUM) in Varna, Bulgaria, in June/July 2023. All travel, visa processing, and lodging expenses would be covered by the initiative.

The "Internationalization and Virtual Exchange: Borderless between EU and Asian Countries" initiative includes institutions from Bulgaria, Lithuania, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and India.

Other Indian collaborators include the Vellore Institute of Technology and the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies.

Harmony is a seven-country collaborative project headed by the University of Zaragoza, Spain, and the European Policy Development and Research Institute, Slovenia. It was initiated at UoH by Prof. N. Siva Kumar, presently the Dean, School of Life Sciences. Other countries represented included Bulgaria, Lithuania, Bangladesh, and Vietnam.

The students who won the Digital Storytelling competition were challenged to question long-held views and how people perceive themselves and the world around them.

They responded by producing four-minute digital stories with their mobile phones on either a live experience or scripted from imagination, but reflecting contemporary realities. A jury consisting of Harmony project faculty and a media expert judged the entries along various parameters such as creativity and originality, content and impact of storytelling, cinematography and editing, and structure and navigation.

Sanjeevini, a Sociology major (IMA) at UoH, is from Nallurpatti village in Tamil Nadu and enjoys reading fiction and poetry and indulges in calligraphy, while being a certified Bharatanatyam dancer. She believes that IACD is “a vital aspect in ensuring unity and peace in today’s highly interconnected and globalised world.”

She hopes to use the visit to Bulgaria to learn new things, make new friends, and make some contributions to cultural diversity on UoH campus.

Mohammed Naseeh Kozhithodi, in his second-year IMA in Anthropology at UoH, grew up in a village in the Malappuram district of Kerala. After completing high school, he took a two-year break to explore different interests and skills, a period that he says helped enrich his creativity and worldview immensely. As a budding writer, he is working on his first novel which he hopes to publish soon. Apart from reading, he finds satisfaction in painting and photography.

Emphasising the importance of diversity, he says, “a world where everyone looks, thinks, and acts the same way would be so cynical and devoid of any strength or vibrance". He sees the visit to Bulgaria as an opportunity to embrace diversity and soak in the cultural richness of various international participants in the project.

Lasya Priya, a second-year student of IMA Political Science at UoH, is from Anakapalli, near Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. She has a passion for Kuchipudi dance, drawing, painting, singing folk songs, and acting, winning prizes in national and university-level competitions. Seeking to make a positive impact on the world with her talents and abilities, she hopes that the trip to Varna in Bulgaria would enhance her ‘understanding of diverse cultures’ and help her become ‘an effective global citizen’.