Fung Scholars Australia Chapter Dialogue in the Dark and Brunch

About the Event

Written by Hannah CALDWELL (FS2012-13, University of Oxford)

We began the Fung Scholars Australia Chapter’s first event meeting for brunch at La Petite Crêperie, a popular French restaurant in the Central Business District. Melbourne is a very “foodie” city, with a vast array of international cuisines on offer and new restaurants and cafes popping up around the city all the time. Meeting for brunch is a typically Melbourne weekend activity and you’re spoilt for choice. This restaurant was chosen by Henry Pun, who is in Melbourne studying cookery, and the food lived up to the hype! The crêpes were delicious.

The aim of brunch was to meet to get to know each other and to discuss future plans for the local chapter. We shared our experiences of the Fung Scholarship which had given us the opportunity to see a new part of the world and to open our eyes to a different way of life somewhere new. It was great to hear about everyone’s different experiences and how it had shaped the path they have taken now. None of us are originally from Australia, so it was also interesting to share our reasons for moving here.

We are all keen to see the Fung Scholars Australia Chapter grow, and we talked about our ideas for the local chapter and what people would like to get from it.

Social Enterprise Event: Dialogue in the Dark

After getting to know each other over coffee and crêpes, we headed across the city to Docklands to take part in the Dialogue in the Dark experience. Dialogue in the Dark is a sensory journey set in total darkness. Participants step out of their comfort zone and take on the challenges of a bustling, simulated Melbourne in the dark. We were met by our guide and instructed to remove anything that emitted light (watches, phones etc.) and place them in lockers to ensure we couldn’t see anything at all and experienced sensing our everyday world, rather than seeing it.

After navigating a variety of settings including a park, the MCG Sports stadium, a tram carriage, and a kitchen setting, we sat down with our guide who shared his experience of navigating the city as a blind person. It was an incredible, enlightening experience and we all came away from it with a lot of food for thought, and a new perspective of our city.

Outcomes

The inaugural Fung Scholars Australia Chapter event allowed us to connect with other Fung Scholars who have come to Australia to think about how we can grow a Chapter here on a new continent! It was a fascinating hearing about everyone’s different experiences through the Fung Scholarship, their backgrounds in different countries and fields of study, and what had brought them to Australia. Over brunch, we discussed ideas for what we might be able to do in future to develop the network here. The Dialogue in the Dark experience encouraged us to think about other people and the challenged for blind people in a city like Melbourne. It inspired us to think about how we could contribute to society here through initiatives, which is something we will explore further in future events. We look forward to planning another Fung Scholars Australia event soon!