International Voices with Udo Fluck Arts Missoula and Missoula Broadcasting Co.

This is the second episode in a three-part series, on organizations, services and products that have aided Missoula in becoming a more diverse community. Listen to Udo talking to several leaders in our community that have done exactly that. In this second episode of 2023, his guest is Susan Hay Patrick, Chief Executive Officer of United Way of Missoula County. Susan talks to Udo about the 90-year history of the United Way, which is the nation’s largest privately supported nonprofit organization, its mission, how it has changed and adjusted over time, the importance of fostering diversity in our community and our society as a whole, the Missoula Nonprofit Center, the United Way Day of Action, and what she is most proud of at United Way.
We hope you join us again for the April episode, featuring Latisha Buck Elk Thunder and Dacia Griego, co-founders of Indigenous Made Missoula.

This is the first episode in a three-part series, on organizations, services and products that have aided Missoula in becoming a more diverse community. Udo talks to several leaders in our community that have done exactly that. In this first episode of 2023, his guest is Eamon Fahey, Deputy Director of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) Missoula branch. He talks with Udo about the 90-year history of the IRC, the over 40 IRC program locations around the world and the 28 US cities that are involved in refugee resettlement, the IRC programming, services and how the community can get engaged. 
We hope you join us again next month, with Udo’s guest Susan Hay Patrick, Chief Executive Officer of United Way of Missoula County.
All International Voices podcast episodes in 2023 are exclusively sponsored by Orr McDonnell Law in Missoula, your advocates for all personal injury, family law and landlord tenant matters.

This is the 3rd and final episode of a series focusing on “Managing Cultural Adjustment and Culture Shock”.

In this last episode of 2022, Udo visits with Paul Mwingwa, a resettled refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who wears many different hats, in addition to being the Refugee Congress Delegate for Montana. Paul is also a Caseworker Assistant at the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Missoula, a member of the Refugees Advisory Council (RAC) for the IRC, a Swahili language instructor and he works as a private contractor at the Lifelong Learning Center in Missoula. Please join Udo for this interesting conversation about resettlement as an invaluable protection tool, that the support for refugees in their resettling process is critical and the importance of making refugees feel that they are part of a new community . Successfully resettled refugees help enrich their local communities, creating a cultural diversity within the local population and helping nurture understanding and appreciation for social diversity.

If your interests are in global and intercultural education, programming, cultural and global competence, and international affairs, we hope you join the International Voices podcast series after a short winter break.

There will be no podcast in January, please reconnect in February 2023, for a new episode of International Voices.

This is the 2nd part of a multi-part series, focusing on “Managing Cultural Adjustment and Culture Shock”. Last month Udo was fortunate to talk to Shiena Greata Medrano, a student at the University of Montana, but born and raised in the city of Manila, the capital of the Philippines, which is also where she started her education. Shiena first settled in Philipsburg, Montana, a city of under a thousand individuals, before moving to Missoula, to attend UM. This November episode is dedicated to all the brave students in high schools around the world who started their education in one country and finish it in another. Who left their comforts, their culture, their traditions and customs behind, and had to re-discover, re-learn and re-build it all in another country and culture. Join Udo to learn about the cultural adjustment of four high school students in Missoula, Sandrine , from Congo, who lived in Uganda for most of her life before coming to Missoula, Tantine and Magnifique from Burundi, and Salim from Syria. Salim moved to Jordan when he was 7. .Listen in, to find out, how these courageous students managed to adjust to a new country, a new culture, a new city and a community they were not familiar with and what they found particularly challenging and what was easy for them to adjust to.
 

Udo is joined by Shiena Greata Medrano, an Accounting and Management Information System Major at the University of Montana, and, if that was not enough for a full-time student, she is also the Indigenous/Rural Outreach Ambassador at Accelerate Montana, an Executive at the UM Pacific Islanders Club and the International Student Association.

Shien was born and raised in the city of Manila, the capital of the Philippines, which is also where she received her primary education. She decided to continue her education in the United States and while study abroad is one of the best ways to acquire global skills, access personal and professional opportunities, by developing intercultural communication, foreign languages, adaptability, and problem-solving skills, it typically requires some cultural adjustment in the host culture and country as well. Coming from Manila, a city with several million people to Philipsburg, Montana, a city of under a thousand individuals is a major change, which includes the shock of a new environment, meeting lots of new people and learning the customs, traditions and values of the new country and its people. An adjustment that many international students are going through, when they decide to leave their rural hometowns and move to another country, and often much more urban settlements, to continue and/or complete their educational journey, just like Shien did. Her journey has been fun, exciting, educational, rewarding, eye-opening, but sometimes also stressful and even frustrating.

Listen in, to find out how you can reduce the impact of culture shock and how you can help others going through it.

This is PART 1, of a multi-part series about individuals managing cultural adjustment and culture shock.

Tune in this episode and learn more about the 40th anniversary of the sister city connection between Missoula and Palmerston North, New Zealand through Gabrielle Nguyen, the
International Relations Manager and Kate Harridge, the Education Advisor, in Palmerston North. Find out how “education” and “international relations” are connected, how students in both locations can benefit from that bond, and how our two communities can learn from each other locally. Learn about the beginning of the twinned city relationship, the benefits that four-decade long tie has positively impacted education, business, commerce, tourism and recreation, the advantages to art and culture and how the two city governments can learn from each other’s experiences in managing common challenges, including public transportation and affordable housing. Udo will also talk to Gabrielle and Kate about how the anniversary has been celebrated so far this year and which programming highlights are still planned until the end of 2022. This podcast closes with an outlook on what the future might hold for the sister city link between Missoula and Palmerston North.