Indian Exchange students at the University of South Australia

It is a great experience to live in another culture
and learn another culture
and it is entirely different from that of India
and it is a nice opportunity to explore
and Adelaide is a pretty wonderful green area to live with
and people are welcoming
and it is nice be here in UniSA
and thanks for UniSA and Madras Christian College
Social Work department for giving me this opportunity. Thank you.

My placement is Women's Information Service and it's a government organisation
and basically my role is to just offer a service for the clients who are coming here
and it's really wonderful to, you know, work in a multicultural context, you know.
It was entirely different to know how a woman's come up with a new problem
and we think that is nothing back in India and they say
it's a problem and it's good to work and a good exposure here
and I think enjoying working here.

Cultural life, it's copmpletely a different scenario
when we see back in India
I would say it's a culture shock when I came
to Australia but still I could able to cope because
I'd been to another place, Malaysia, too
so there is some, how do you say, there is not as much
of a culture shock for me but I could able to
take it and cope with it
and I find it good too.

Okay, I'm currently placed in Uniting Care Wesley
especially in a homelessness project
and there is a worse difference between India homelessness
as well as in Australian homelessness.
In India, homelessness means the person who doesn't have a shelter
that's it, but in Australia the homelessness means the person who's
away from the family is also considered as it
so I can say this is... there is a worse difference between
Indian culture as well as in Australian culture.
and thank you so much for MCC Social Work department for giving
this great opportunity for me. Thank you.
I'm going to ask you about eating in Adelaide.
Is it difficult to get the right kind of food? Are you finding it okay?
Okay, well the first day I arrived in Adelaide
my host mother actually put a plate full of raw vegetables
which are really in the size of... there's a tomato as a tomato
and I'm like, I am not a vegetarian at all!
and then well I told her that in India we actually chop them
into small pieces and my mother especially makes it so
insignificant a piece that I don't realise that I'm eating a vegetable
so that's the difference but then out here we actually
I mean she's, the Australian host mother that I have, she's
mostly like, she likes cooking. So we do a lot of cooking
around the house like Moroccan and African and things like that so that's interesting.
It's interesting to tell about welcoming in South Australia you know
like before coming here, back in India, we heard
everything as negative, you know.
Indian students are attacked and my parents especially
they didn't allow me and we had... my parents
my father I should say, he has to undergo a counselling process for
sending me here, but after coming here it's entirely different
entirely different. It's upside-down.
People were welcoming, warm and you know they are just
beautiful and fabulous to welcome us.
Thank you Australia and and thank you MCC SWD for sending us to UniSA.
- Yeah! - Thank you.