The Community Engagement Office hosted and offered various civic engagement activities, community building events, human rights related activities and inspiring artistic programs throughout the fall term this academic year.
In September, we organized two community cooking events. CEU students and staff prepared meals for refugees at the Caritas Community Kitchen at Kulturhaus Brotfabrik in Vienna, while other staff members and CEU Socrates Project alumni volunteers prepared and served lunch to visitors for a donation collected by DEVISZONT NGO at Szimpla Farmers' Market in Budapest. During these two community events, 30 volunteers peeled and chopped almost 90 kilos of veggies, cooked 250 servings of hot meals and baked 200 portions of desserts. In Vienna, the prepared meals were delivered to Kilmaoase, while in Budapest the leftover food was donated to a homeless shelter run by the Oltalom Charity Association.
Also in September, Kitong Kiass International Conference on Restitution of African artefacts was hosted by the Community Engagement Office initiated by Afrieurotext and Fresh Magazine to draw attention to the issue of restitution of African looted/stolen artefacts in the context of Austria. Leaders of the African diaspora in Austria and Europe, researchers, curators, artists and politicians gathered for 3 days at CEU to discuss this issue.
The Civic Engagement Fellowship Program was launched in October. CEU students applied for the Civic Engagement Fellowship with project ideas based on the real community needs of Austrian and Hungarian citizens. During the opening event, the project owners introduced their activities focusing, among others, on diversity, equality, inclusion, education, environment, and human rights. These projects will be carried out in AY 2022/23.
This year, together with Human RightS Initiative (HRSI) - Community Engagement Office, Queer CEU reimagined the International Coming Out Day as CEU Queer Visibility Week. CEU boasts a thriving LGBTIQA+ community, and we believe we can raise greater awareness of our needs with students, staff, and faculty. We cherish the wide breadth of life experiences each person brings with them to the table. CEU Queer Visibility Week, HRSI and Queer CEU focused on the importance of respecting pronouns. To raise awareness in our community, Queer CEU had a table from October 11-13 on the ground floor of the Quellenstraße campus where everyone could learn more about the importance of respecting pronouns. During the week, we also had a social media campaign to share stories from CEU students, faculty, staff and alumni about their queer journeys! We also had an awareness raising campaign online on how we can be better allies to foster inclusive and respectful spaces. Read what CEU members had to say here https://www.instagram.com/hrsi.ceu/
On October 12, the Socrates Project hosted the editor-in-chief of the community-financed Telex.hu, one of the last bastions of independent press in Hungary. In conversation with Socrates students, Szabolcs Dull discussed issues such as the importance of objective, fact-based reporting in the social media age, the public services independent, private startups can provide, and reasons for optimism across the current media landscape. See photos of the event here.
On November 6, the Community Engagement Office and Sustainable CEU organized a volunteer opportunity for CEU community members to prepare an area of the garden for fruit tree planting as part of the #coenrechargeseason at the Laaerberg Community Garden in Favoriten. A team of 15 volunteers helped dig the holes for planting trees for an event organized as part of the ObstStadt Wien (Fruit City Vienna) project. The project aims to increase the number of edible fruit trees in urban green spaces. Volunteers learned about the different community gardening opportunities at Laaerberg andthe history of the area. They also met many locals from the district involved in the community garden and enjoyed a small picnic prepared for volunteers by our hosts of the Community Garden Association. It was a great civic engagement opportunity for CEU community members to get more involved in the districts’ local projects.
On November 17 and 18, CEU’s Community Engagement Office organized the conference Keeping the Doors Open to discuss the past, present and future of university access programs in Western Europe and North America. During the many insightful conversations, we learned that civic engagement and access to university are not separate from the business of research and teaching, but an essential aspect of it.
The first Science Café event was organized in December. There are a lot of ways to collaborate with external organizations in a course setting. They can be guest speakers or they can moderate a session, contributing to students' learning. This is a relatively low level of participation. And there are then ways that go beyond: a course built up for continued interaction between the lecturer, students and the partner organization during the semester. These are typically organized around a specific project where students can put theory into practice, offering an out-of-classroom, real-life experience. Though it delivers high satisfaction, coordinating all this is not an easy task. At the Science Café, an informal, leisurely and staff-only event during lunch break, we shared the pros and cons of working with external partners.
Pizza Fridays are organized on the first Friday of each month by the Community Engagement Office. Every event is dedicated to a different theme encouraging everyone to join in the conversation and activities. Since the beginning of the academic year, COEN has hosted 3 editions of the event, where students had the chance to talk with the CEU office for Inclusion, Diversity and Equality and with the OSUN team at CEU. During the December edition of Pizza Friday, students came together to write and send appreciation cards to their colleagues and academic and administrative staff in CEU.
On December 5, we welcomed the Holiday Season with an End of Year Celebration where CEU academic and administrative staff members together with their families could enjoy good conversation, live music and delicious food and drinks.
The Community Engagement Office would like to wish all CEU members a very merry holiday season and a joyful new year. We will come back with new events and activities at the beginning of 2023.