APU Second Annual FRIENDS Day: International and Intercultural Festival
June 30th 2021 saw the second APU FRIENDS Day being celebrated at APU.
The event celebrated the diversity of our student body and the work that has been done with students in areas such as poverty, mental health and equal opportunities. The discussion session focussed on diversity and inclusivity and how both APU and DMU have a similar outlook on these aspects.
The Student Representative Council worked with the clubs and societies to showcase their activities and how culture play an important role to bring the members together.
The two key events were to officially (virtually) launch the FRIENDS Teahouse and to announce the 2021 winners of the Digital Story Competition. This year we had 190 digital stories to judge from our first year students. In comparison we only had 20 for the 2020 competition.
The judging panel made up of myself Suan and Jason reviewed the entries and the five winners were invited to attend the ceremony to provide some more background to their stories and the importance of the intercultural experience after they were premiered to the world.
The quality was extremely high and allowed the students to express their own thoughts an intercultural experiences from a range of perspectives. The look of shock soon turned to pride as the panel could watch the winners ‘backstage’ as their videos started to play. Their pride but also humility was evident as they accepted their win with confidence.
We look forward to being able to celebrate their successes in person once we are all allowed to safely travel to campus to receive their small prizes and certificate.
You may view the videos on the APU Students’ Digital Stories tab here, or watch them on YouTube: