Week two of the UKM found us in Southport, a seaside town and popular Victorian-era vacation destination. This was also the place where we would meet our home stay families who would invite us into their homes for the next 12 days. We were all waiting with a mix of anxiety and excitement as our host parents picked us up one-by-one from Southport College.
While in Southport, our home stay coordinator gave us a tour of the town, taking us to an old-fashioned arcade on the pier and a sweets shop. The tour ended with our first to the office of the mayor of Southport.
Student Karina writes — we received a very detailed tour of the Southport town hall, led by Sefton Mayor Dave Robinson. He provided loads of historical context of the city as well as its local politics. He then went on to show a variety of important objects such as influential chains and the maize that is used to commence any council sessions, all things that our group ensured to get lots of pictures with. Additionally we visited a large meeting room where dozens and dozens of committees meet and discuss important issues.
Outside of southport, we spent a lot of the week in Liverpool at the Yellow House, a charity organization that provides a range of services and arts-based therapy for young people in the area. The community members took us around to the docks, the museums and Chinatown. We appreciated their insider knowledge and learning slang words in the local dialect, scouse English! We set off to work on our next media project, which would be a cross-cultural examination of the issues facing young people in the US and the U.K.
When we weren’t hard at work on our projects, students visited the Liverpool radio station, the Beatles museum and the Terracotta Warriors exhibit at the World Museum. Experimenter Alyssa loved learning about ancient Chinese history, burial practices and the quest for immortality.
Overall, it was another busy week delving into our media projects and seeing the sights of our new host communities!
Students at clue finders
Students posing with a statue of liverpools two biggest imports – lamb and bananas. The statue is called a lambanana and they are all around Liverpool!
Students working on their media projects at yellow house