APU’s Erasmus+ Friends Teahouse

APU is a Centre Point to develop its students’ global competence through the integration of intercultural dimensions into the university’s formal and informal curriculum. Led by APU partnerships and standards senior director Prof Dr Andy Seddon, the Erasmus+ Friends project, which kickstarted in early 2019, is co-funded by the European Union and is built around the concept of Internationalisation at Home (IaH).This is to also support minority groups within the University to interact, engage and transform.

​Erasmus, established in 1987, is an acronym for the European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students, while Friends stands for Furthering International Relations Capacities and Intercultural Engagement to Nurture Campus Diversity and to Support Internationalisation at Home.

The project with an RM4.9mil allocation shared among four European and 12 South-East Asian partners will continue to be funded until November next year. APU is one of two universities in Malaysia supporting the programme, together with 10 other Asian higher education institutions in Bhutan, Cambodia, the Philippines and Thailand.

Erasmus+ Friends Teahouse is where members of the university’s Student Representative Council will be able to meet, discuss and organise events. It will also be a zone to promote international mobility pathways and semester break activities, as well as intercultural awareness and the Intercultural Awareness and Cultural Diversity (IACD) module delivered on campus. The Teahouse will ‘adopt’ a local community group to jointly develop a Community Development Plan.