Dozens of Western Australian Students Study Arts, Culture and Disabilities at UNESA Through the 2024 WAEJUC Program

West Australian students learn to play gamelan at UNESA Campus 2 Lidah Wetan, Surabaya

Unesa.ac.id., SURABAYA—Surabaya State University (UNESA) welcomes 28 students from Western Australia to the Western Australia program and East Java Universities Consortium (WAEJUC) at Campus 2 Lidah Wetan, Surabaya on Monday, July 9 2024.

WAEJUC is a student exchange program in collaboration between the East Java government and the West Australian Government since 2017. In This time, the participants had the opportunity to visit ten universities in East Java and UNESA was one of them.

Asrori, S.S., M.Pd., Head of Sub-Directorate for International Affairs UNESA, welcomed the arrival of the participants who incidentally were students from abroad. He hopes that this visit will not only be an opportunity for cultural exchange, but also expand the academic collaboration network between countries.

West Australian students are fascinated by the diversity of traditional Indonesian musical instruments, one of which is the gamelan. According to them, its shape and sound are unique.

“During Here, friends will get to know how students with disabilities study at UNESA. Apart from that, there is BIPA training, where later friends will find out how easy it is to learn Indonesian. "Also learn to play traditional Javanese musical instruments," he welcomed.

One of the participants from the University of Notre Dame Australia, Paige Littlefair, expressed her enthusiasm for joining this program. He said that he really enjoyed learning about the disability programs and services at UNESA.

The international student also took part in the UNESA Indonesian Language for Foreign Speakers (BIPA) class.

“In "In several universities I have visited, access for people with disabilities is still difficult to reach, but here it is different, quite interesting," he said.

Received guidance from Acep Ovel Novari Beny, M.Pd. from the Disability Directorate of the Home of the Champions Campus, they learned about Supporting Inclusion on a Daily Basis, namely learning Sign Language, knowing about the Autism Center and technology that helps people with disabilities in their activities.

Accompanied by the UNESA team, West Australian students seemed happy to study arts and culture at UNESA.

After exploring and learning about the world of disabilities, they continue the activities of the Faculty of Languages ​​and Arts (FBS). There, they have the opportunity to learn Indonesian in the BIPA program. Apart from that, they also learn to play traditional Javanese musical instruments, the gamelan.

Liam Kearon, Curtin University student, expressed his pleasure at being able to undertake this activity at UNESA. Liam admitted that he learned many new things here and got to know more about Indonesian culture.

“I'm happy because even though we've only been here for two weeks, we already know quite a lot. "I like seeing the campuses here (East Java), the old buildings and the people here, it's all interesting to me," he concluded.[]

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Editor: @zam*

Photo: UNESA Public Relations Team