Den här terminen på SU har varit väldigt speciell för mig. Jag har mött så många otroligt engagerade och fascinerande människor som bryr sig så mycket om andra. En person har dock synts mest och verkat vara med överallt, nämligen glada Kyle från Kanada som alltid har en uppmuntrande kommentar till övers. Han har bland annat startat upp föreningen Cinema Politica och var med och ledde Earth Week projektet. Snacka om driven människa.
Who are you and what are you doing at Stockholm University?
My name is Kyle Verboomen and I'm half-way through my master's degree in human geography at Sthlm Uni. It's been a great experience!
You are involved in the association "cinema politica". Tell us about your work!
Cinema Politica is a pretty cool organisation that was the Big Thing at my university back home: screening political film, meeting interesting people, and becoming more aware of stuff. Cool concept, eh? When I got to Sweden, I felt like I had so much time to get involved in stuff, and so many of my friends wanted to do something cool as well. We all loved political film and wanted to create something juicy on campus, to wake people up and create some opportunities for engagement and awareness of big issues. Obviously, starting up a Cinema Politica was the idea we enjoyed the most. Since we've started up in February, we've screened films to around 2000 people, worked with numerous NGO's, inspirational individuals and film directors!
You are very good at encouraging people, where do you get your energy from?
Yeah, everyone wants to do good things. Our University is paved with good intentions, and there is a small percentage of very hard working individuals that are giving up a lot of their time (for no money at all) to make the university experience better for the majority. Imagine if the entire student population would put one hour of their time per week to student activities or student affairs? We would have a true, collective university. My mom always told me "if you don't get your hands dirty in the soil, you'll never know what you belong to". She's a landscaper, so she has all of these funny sayings that have to do with planting. But that saying is true in many respects. A lot of students enjoy being at a respectful university, complain about how boring the student life is, expect the next person to take care of it, but many haven't taken the chance to get their hands dirty or even see how they can make a difference. Anyways, it's the same story at many schools, so I'm just doing what my friends are doing by trying tmake a small impact at Stockholm University.
What would you say to inspire other people to be as engaged as you are?
Give a shit about what's going on around you. If you don't learn how to act in school, it's going to be harder to do so outside of it. Use this time to fine tune your skills and sharpen those edges so you can leave school and be a real force when you're doing what you love. Many say "yeah, I'll care once i leave school and enter the "real world". School is part of the real world, and it's great time to learn about how big of an impact you can have on a community! Go out there and do some good stuff. The school seriously needs you! :)
Jag har hittils älskat Cinema Politicas filmer, jättemysigt att efter en skoldag få gå på gratisbio precis runt hörnet! Och dessutom veta att det är en grym film man kommer få se är ju guld, till skillnad från annat skräp man så ofta lyckas hamna framför.
Nu på måndag är deras avslutning för den här terminen och de screenar filmen "dreamland". Kolla mer om det på facebook, och om det finns tid, kom och kolla!
/Linnéa
Broschen jag fick med mig hem
Sällskapet :)
/Yasmin
