This text is part of the special International Cooperation section
Cooperation internships at the university make it possible to train students, but above all to train citizens who will know how to deal with intercultural differences. UQAC students return from an internship in Senegal full of new skills and memories.
Marie-Pier Perron, a bachelor’s student in physiotherapy at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi (UQAC), had never traveled anywhere other than in all-inclusive hotels, before setting foot on African soil, as part of an internship in the spring last.
“It was definitely a shock,” admits the 21-year-old. “ [Dans le village, les gens] go into mangroves, so they are up to their hips in water. They go looking for shellfish and collect them all day long, it’s a job not easy,” she explains.
Marie-Pier is one of 19 UQAC students who took part in an internship in Dionewar, a village in eastern Senegal, last summer. Whether they were enrolled in social sciences, health sciences or international cooperation, young people had five weeks to complete different assignments and obtain university credits. A project that they were able to finance entirely with fundraising and grants.
Such practical experience complements the more theoretical learning at university, in an exotic and educational travel context. “In physiotherapy at UQAC we do not have a baccalaureate internship. So this is our first experience, first patient contact. […] When we started 3e year, we had a little head start,” says Marie-Pier.
An influence on the university career
This internship guided the career choice of Joël Bergeron, who is studying a bachelor’s degree in history at UQAC. Alongside his studies, he now works in the field of international cooperation and it is partly thanks to this trip.
“I have recently been employed at the Saguenay international solidarity center,” explains the man for whom the stay in Dionewar consolidated his interest in this field. “I am the one who will be a guide and responsible for the next internship in Senegal in May 2024,” he adds.
The 25-year-old young man also had his first real experience of scientific field research last summer, investigating the effects of French colonization among local populations.
“History is a lot of research in books, in archives, on the Internet, reading, personal work, whereas here, what is interesting is to seek out life stories directly from locals and to create a work based on their personal experience and the way in which they experienced colonization or the way in which the colonization of Africa had an impact on their lives,” he relates.
This project gives him the impetus to eventually continue his research at the graduate level, by adding an archaeological dimension, discovered during his stay in Senegal.
Training global citizens
Marie Fall, professor of geography and international cooperation at UQAC, has been responsible for this internship for 13 years. She argues that returning to the same villages year after year makes it possible to make lasting changes for communities, in addition to taking action on impending problems.
“This involves, for example, working on fairly urgent issues in the village and making recommendations to seek funding through international development projects,” illustrates the researcher. “There are very concrete repercussions immediately and afterwards for a better understanding of village development issues,” she argues.
According to Mme Fall, the effects of these stays on students are undeniable, particularly with regard to the intercultural experience.
“When they return, they are citizens more open to the world, more aware of the problems that immigrants who arrive from these regions may experience, they are more equipped in the approach, their interaction with this new clientele” , supports the professor, herself of Senegalese origin.
According to Marie Fall, it is also the role of the university to provide access to this type of experience. “It is fundamental to promote better living together in a society where we have diversity,” she believes.
Marie-Pier Perron agrees. “You can be more understanding, better understand how they see things,” says the aspiring physiotherapist, who thinks she is better able to understand the reality of future immigrant patients from Africa.
The health sciences student maintains that her internship brought her both personally and professionally. “I made two close friends there […] we still talk to each other on WhatsApp, FaceTime, we give each other news,” says Marie-Pier, with a smile in her voice, hoping, one day, to set foot there again.
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