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'Knowledge Exchange has no boundaries' - Harry Pointon's historical and botanical experience with National Museum for Wales

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In this blogpost, history student Harry Pointon tells us how he saw his knowledge shared and valued by host organisation Museum for Wales. Knowledge Exchange has no boundaries. The emphasis that TAP puts on placements being a two-way knowledge exchange process is not misplaced, there really is infinite possibility for support, expertise and passion to flow both from placement hosts and those on placement and vice versa. Initially, arriving at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, and touring its vast and grand exhibits of historical art, botany, fossils, animals and more, as well as research facilities, libraries and archives, I felt completely out of my depth. What could I possibly offer such a prestigious institution and its expert staff, as a second year history student? That’s when I reflected on my TAP sessions and remembered being told that my experience, knowledge, and interests were entirely unique, and that I will always have something to bring to the table. I would encoura...
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'Placemaking is not simply physical: it is down to human attitudes, actions, and communication': Lois describes how an online placement can be just as rewarding as face to face working

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Creating ‘place’ when working from home Lois describes how an online placement can be just as rewarding as face to face working I was incredibly lucky to be taken on as an intern at Cinema for All this summer. Cinema for All describes its main role as “helping communities across the country to develop and sustain the type of film screenings they want”. As a lover of all things film, I immediately knew this was the internship I wanted to work on. I was ecstatic when I found out I got a place working for a company that centres itself around the idea that the universal love of film helps build communities, although, naturally, the daily workings of the workplace were a mystery to me.  From my first introductory video call to my first time in the office, what immediately struck me about the team was their ability to make me feel comfortable, despite any subconscious anxieties I may have had about working in a completely new and unfamiliar environment. This is made even more perplexing ...
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Lydia's experience: "TAP helped me see that I am employable and that I can find my place in the working world"

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This is an adapted version of a presentation that English Literature graduate Lydia gave at the Yorkshire Universities 'One Year On' Employability Conference on 7th June 2023. Lydia presented to an audience of over 100 delegates from universities across the Yorkshire region about her understanding of and experience of 'employability'. She discusses how, due to an inclusive environment on her  TAP internship with  With Love  in 2021, she felt able to bring all parts of her identity to the workplace and celebrate the value in her 'contexts and disabilities'.  Read on to see how this has transformed Lydia's attitude to the workplace: I always thought that being employable was learning how to be an inauthentic version of myself. To be a person who masked, altered and suppressed all my needs in order to be an employee who didn’t need any accommodations. This was a really scary and a potentially dangerous expectation of the working world. My experience with TAP he...
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Vince and Enrico's reflections on an internship with Glass-House Community Led Design: "[it] is about connecting people and bringing our skills and knowledge together"

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The Glass-House is a national charity dedicated to "connecting people with the design of their places, and connecting design with people”. They use collaborative design methodologies to connect and empower individuals and organisations to work together to improve the design of their buildings, open spaces, homes, and neighbourhoods. Vince   shares his journey on the TAP programme internship that he has spent with The Glass-House over the summer and his collaboration on the further development of our  gaming workshop model , which we tested at the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield. Vince and Enrico Capturing the various playable worlds the participants where creating As summer comes to a close, I look back on my internship with The Glass-House. Enrico and I joined through the University of Sheffield’s Transforming and Activating Places (TAP) programme, which introduced us to the importance of placemaking. During the internship, I helped to design and deliver a workshop abo...
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“The wonderful complexity of home": Our Journey Here. TAP student Takaaki Higa reflects on their time at Migration Matters Festival.

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In this post, TAP student Takaaki describes how they developed a new perspective on what home means to them, through leading workshops with Migration Matters Festival . Our Journey Here, by TAP student Takaaki Higa As an international student from Okinawa, Japan, I'm sometimes asked the question: "where are you from?". Typically, I reply "Japan" as it is the easiest answer to avoid having to explain further. But at the same time, I feel like I am oversimplifying my home and the stories interwoven with it.  Okinawa is the southernmost prefecture in Japan, of which Japan has 47. It used to be under the control of the US from after WWII until 1972, so even though I was born in the late 1990s, the stories I heard from my parents and grandparents were totally different from what I learned at school about "Japanese history". This is because textbooks speak of Japan in the 1950s to 70s as going through a great ‘Economic Miracle’ but Okinawa was almost wholly ...
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