Wishes for a more organized support

– As a blind person, I have had to acquire certain skills, such as reading braille and walking with a cane… but I have no special needs; I have the same needs as everyone else.

So says Nadina Imamovic from Sarajevo, who has been an Erasmus exchange student at GU for three months.

IT WAS LAST NOVEMBER that GU's partner university in Sarajevo proposed Nadina Imamovic as an exchange student within the framework of

Erasmus International Credit Mobility. The program offers exchanges with universities outside the EU, and also provides inclusion support, explains Viktoria Jendmyr, education administrator and international coordinator at the Department of Social Work.

– Since, as far as I know, our department has never received a blind exchange student before, we naturally wanted to find out what the commitment entails. Among other things, we had three Zoom meetings with Nadina to discuss her needs.

Together with Johan Ahlgren at the International Centre, Viktoria Jendmyr contacted the Swedish Council for Higher Education, UHR, which administers funds from the European Commission.

– WE LISTED EVERYTHING that Nadina needs, in addition to what the department offers. Among other things, the UHR supported some of her apartment rent so that she could live reasonably close to central Gothenburg and be able to walk to the department. We also got support for extra hours for the teachers, so they could go over specific points with her, and to label her student room with braille so she could cook, wash and so on. We were quite unsure of exactly what we needed, but at UHR they were very accommodating and explained that we could complete the application as we went along.

At the university central level, however, it was not possible to get help with anything other than the pedagogical, i.e. note-taking, text-reading and the like. And that has worked exemplary, but everything else was the department's responsibility, says Viktoria Jendmyr.

– BUT IF THERE IS anyone who should be up to this kind of challenge, it is the Department of Social Work! Many staff members got involved. For example, at first the City of Gothenburg refused a professional companion – since Nadina is only here for a short period and lacks a Swedish social security number, the support does not apply to her. Then one of our teachers, Lilja Cajvert, got involved, so in the end Nadina got a companion after all, paid by our department.

At home in Sarajevo, Nadina Imamovic is involved in Bosnia's Association for the Visually Impaired. She says that it is difficult to be a blind student in her home country.

– When I started studying at the University of Sarajevo, I was not given a companion, but my mother followed me both to and from the institution. I also had to adapt all the course material myself. This meant that I first scanned my coursebooks, which could be around 400 pages, and then fed them into a program that converted the text into artificial speech. Then I transferred the most important parts to braille because you learn better by reading than by just listening. Nowadays, the University Library helps to make the literature readable for me, so things are progressing even if it takes time. Here at GU, I have not experienced any problems getting help; Sweden feels like a paradise for the visually impaired.

NADINA IMAMOVIC has also been an exchange student in the USA for ten months.

– I had a guide dog there, which was very good. However, that would not work in Sarajevo because of all the aggressive stray dogs there, that attack other dogs.

Many staff members at the Department of Social Work and the International Center have committed themselves to Nadina Imamovic, explains Viktoria Jendmyr. In particular, the teachers on Nadina's course have been a great support.

– I understand that GU cannot have special readiness for the very few occasions when we receive a blind exchange student. But there should be some kind of help, perhaps in the area of widening participation, or at least a sounding board, for a department that accepts an exchange student with a disability. It is fantastic with all voluntary efforts, but more organized support is also needed.