Mary: So can I ask you what do you think a good citizen is or does?
Jacquie: I think I'd like to probably answer that from the perspective of the people that I work with, who are very determined to join in as many things as possible, and to actually give back to a country that they're living in. And I can see that in several ways, one is that they actually want to work and to contribute, and they also want to be involved with as many people from different walks of life as possible as well.
And one of the ways that people tend to do that, I think the people I know is to be involved in education. I think that for me education is really important in helping people understand, and that's understand other people, understand the country we live in, understand the issues, the policies, the politics that we face, and so I think a good citizen is somebody possibly who keeps trying to learn about new things all the time as well. Doesn't just stand still but maybe is constantly just educating themselves a little bit.
Mary: That's interesting. So you said it's people wanting to get involved, and people wanting to get involved maybe practically, but also just to sort of expand their own awareness.
Jacquie: Yes, yeah. And I think particularly because some of the people that we work with, because they arrive in the countries as asylum seekers they tend to be put in communities with other people very similar to them, which is fine when they first arrive that's really good and really supportive, but I think to belong as a citizen when you become citizens of a country you want to expand beyond that, and actually understand the wider community that you live in, and I think that's where education can be really beneficial because you meet other people.
Mary: Absolutely.
Jacquie: ... and you learn about other things so.
Mary: So you can see that actively sort of happening here can't you?
Jacquie: Yes, you can. I mean we sort of ... we try and see the University as a community in itself, a community where people are encouraged to belong and to feel almost like a citizen of this University and that sort of ... that's done in lots of different ways. To try and get people actively involved and make it a two-way process, and then putting something into the University as well as getting something out of the University, and I suppose that's a sort of model for a wider citizenship.
Mary: Smashing, thank you.