Thuvarakai Kandasamy

Exchange at the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratization in Venice

I am currently on a semester abroad at the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratization in Venice taking courses related to Human Rights. The courses are part of the “European Master in Human Rights and Democratisation”, which is a joint degree organized by more than 40 European Universities. The programme is multidisciplinary and the professors have different academic backgrounds. They have great insights in their respective fields which has been one of the best things about this exchange programme so far. The multidisciplinarity means that human rights issues are approached from different angles, for instance from a legal perspective or from political perspective.

One of the great things about Global Development is that the second year of the programme you have great liberty to do what suits your study interest and (possible) future career best. For me, this was the perfect opportunity to widen my horizon. During my first year I realized that a rights-based approach to development is one of the leading approaches when it comes to implementation of, for example, EU and UN development-projects in the global south. The courses have definitely provided me with some new “tools” to work with, but at the same also helped me challenging some of my pre-existing ideas and helped me get closer to a possible thesis topic.

Also, this has been a good opportunity to meet more interesting people with a lot of different personal and academic backgrounds and experiences. Taking courses abroad in a slightly different field has been the perfect option for me and is something I would definitely recommend other GD students to do.