Category Archives: Trek2016

Shameless Curiosity

Dearest reader!

I assume that, since you have found this humble blog of mine, you may be interested, or already have, in enrolling in the UBC Trek program? If that is not the case,  as you continue to read what I am about to tell you, I hope that you might change your mind.

What does it mean to volunteer? Does the act of deliberately giving up your precious and limited time for no recompensation ultimately make you a greater and happier individual? This is largely the impression put forward in the public discourse. The volunteer is given a saint-status and delicately portrayed as the Angel on earth there to save those in need. You think I am exaggerating? Well, maybe I am, but let me ask you something. Think about the last time you met someone and they told you about a volunteer placement of theirs. What was your initial reaction? That they is a good person.  Exactly. That being said, being a volunteer does require some characteristics I believe to be of utter importance and value, not in terms of having these characteristic, but learning them.

It is predominately the “idea” of volunteering that is so highly acclaimed and not necessarily the volunteering in itself. If you allow yourself to think about it, why is it that we have a system of volunteers in the first place? Is it really merely as a way to help vulnerable communities?  The motive behind this blog is to debunk this myth of volunteering as honorable quest to save to ones in need and to hopefully contribute to a changed public discourse around this topic.The TREK program offered at UBC does a good job doing that. Instead of understanding volunteer work as a static act of benevolence and helping of those in need, the TREK program views volunteering as part of a multi-disciplinary approach to academic knowledge and a tool to comprehend the contemporary world. I strongly believe that by altering the view of exposing yourself to a social context different from your own, one has the potential to influence individuals’ thoughts and actions using knowledge to promote awareness. Through the following blog posts, I will address two lessons I learned by attending the Trek Program as I first year International UBC Student. As cliché as it may be, I believe that only through someone’s stories one can acquire a more realistic glimpse of an understanding of a particular experience.

What is TREK and How did I get involved?

As an international first-year student originally from Sweden I am pursuing a Coordinated Arts Program in the Global Citizen stream at UBC. This is a first-year academic program that offers and combines several Arts courses in areas such as Politics, Sociology, and Geography with the aim to explore our role as individuals in an increasingly globalized world. It was through my sociology course SOCI 100, that my Professor Kerry Greer, first introduced me to the TREK program as a practical alternative option to the usual weekly discussion groups with theoretical and research-based assignments.

The TREK program is a one-year program offered through UBC’s Center for Community-based Learning that places students in community settings (non-profits organizations and inner city schools). In order to participate in TREK specifically, you must complete and submit an official online application in the beginning of the school year. Once enrolled in the program you must complete three assignments throughout the year and attend three Community Dinners with the other TREK participants.

Having previously done quite a bit of volunteering as a high-school student, I felt on a personal level the need to challenge my experience of Vancouver and to understand what it really meant to live in this Canadian city. Although being there for those in need is an important factor, that was never the core of my ambition to participate in the program. I wanted to learn and get to know this new community that I had arrived to. At first, I was ambivalent towards participating. I was scared that it would require more of me than I would willing to provide, that it would drain me of energy and be too overwhelming. What finally made me change my mind and apply was purely my curiousness. I was curious to experience my surroundings, and I think that you should be as well!

Lesson 1: The Bus Ride

Imagine it is your very first day at your new Trek placement: The Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House (DTES NH). You are on the bus and as it crosses the bridge over Grandville and enters Downtown, you become aware of this sucking sensation present in your upper stomach. In your head, you casually try to blame it on the spicy Indian you had for lunch, although both your head and your stomach know: You are dead nervous.

I can clearly recall this moment when I think back to my experience working for the DTES NH, how uncomfortable and unsure I felt about my new responsibility. Oh, how different my feelings were sitting on that same bus going to my last day in comparison.

One aspect of the volunteering experience that is often neglected is the experience you have outside of the actual volunteering itself. It is almost like having children. Everyone will tell you about all the emotions that you may experience when you are spending time with your child, how you should take care of it, what you should do etc.  What they do not tell you, however, is how having child will make you feel when you are not with it. They won’t tell you about the guilt and feeling of not being good enough, about the stress of just not being able to be there when you are needed. I believe that the volunteer experience is to some extent a similar experience. Just like when you become a parent, being a volunteer requires you to take on a new role and responsibility in addition to your previous ones. This additional responsibility, however, has a tendency to sometimes clash with other aspects of your life and balancing the two different worlds are not always easy. The “idea” of being a volunteer comes alongside many external expectations about how you are supposed to act and feel in order to be a “good” volunteer. The truth is, being a “good” volunteer as relative to the organization you are volunteering for and it takes some time to become comfortable in your new role.

My one-hour bus ride back and forth to my volunteer placement was where this realization first came to me. It was while sitting on the bus 14 going to my volunteer placement that I experienced the anxieties about leaving a pile of homework at UBC and feeling guilty about feeling like I did not have time for volunteering. It was also on bus 14 coming back from my volunteer placement that I experienced gratefulness for the people that I slowly began to build relationships with. On that bus ride, I could identify how my role as a volunteer at the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House gradually grew on me, how I slowly felt like I knew how to be a “good” volunteer. All I needed was just a little time in order to fully enjoy the ride.

Lesson 2: The Baby

Another lesson that I learned working with the DTES NH was how to connect with the people I was working with. As a volunteer there I participated in a Family Drop-in program, which consisted of drop-in sessions that include four main activities that the families in the DTES can participate in; an arts and craft table, collectively preparing snacks and dinner, an interactive play and build area and eating the prepared meal together. Many of the families consistently participate every week and are undeniably the most essential aspect of my work there.

In the beginning, I had a hard time connecting with the families. I simply could not seem to identify how to approach them in my position as a volunteer. It was strange, I felt like I was an outsider in their social setting. Like they all were speaking a language fluently that I had just begun to learn. The parents and the children all were used to the structure and routine of the program, and they all knew each other from before. I, on the other hand, mostly had no real idea what would happen next.I had not expected to feel that way. I was the volunteer, right? Was it not me who was supposed to be in charge of the program? I made mistakes all the time, like giving non-halal meat to the Muslim family or constantly asking the wrong questions to the wrong person. During this initial time period,  sitting down to have dinner together slightly terrified me. Nevertheless, I had made a conscious decision to eat with the families and do my very best to engage with them, hoping that my feeling of separation would eventually disappear.

It took a long time before if finally paid off. All because of a baby. One of the families had just welcomed a new member into the world. It was a tiny little thing that, unlike many babies, quietly observed the people surrounding. You could see how proud its older siblings were, and especially the oldest who almost never let the baby out of her sight.I had during several weeks been eating dinner with that particular family, and I had been struggling to get the approval from the oldest sister. Everything I would attempt to begin a conversation, she would simply look at me, as she was trying to call my bluff and simply ignored my questions. I had tried everything, but she simply seemed uninterested in becoming my friend. Then one day, she asked if I wanted to hold her sister.

I remember my heart stopping and my hands begin to sweat as I said that I would love to hold the baby. As she placed the baby in my arms, carefully giving me detailed descriptions ensuring that I would hold it properly, the way I viewed my role as volunteer drastically changed. Being the oldest of four, the little soft baby reminded me of holding my younger brother and sister when they were babies. Suddenly, I did not feel distant to the family and as I look up at her sister she smiled at me saying “She is cute, isn’t she”? I smiled back. In that moment I realized that being a volunteer is just as building any type of friendship, it takes time and you simply cannot force it. It will happen when you can meet at the same level. You have to let them decide the pace and direction that the friendship takes, because to a large extent they are the ones in charge of the situation- not you. When I had tried to “control” the situation and be a “good” volunteer by asking questions, I had failed to recognize this essential point. Thus, instead of constantly thinking of yourself as the “volunteer” try to see yourself as just another person sharing the experience and listen to the people surrounding you.

Hello everyone!

My name is Maria and I am (or should I say was) a student in the Global Citizens CAP stream. Soci 100, a course I presume you readers are taking, provides a great opportunity for you to get involved in communities that may not be as privileged as others. (Plus, it does help not to write a 16 page research essay.)

I was placed in the Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House, a community centre-like establishment in the Renfrew-Hastings area. My role as a volunteer was to help with the Saturday Youth Connections program, where newcomers who are new to Canada will have a safe place to learn about Canadian culture, their community and practice their English. It was a program focused on permanent residences, but had an overwhelmingly attendance of international students.

My very first assignment as a volunteer at this placement was to plan and facilitate a Christmas gingerbread making project for the students attending. The students would learn how to measure ingredients and follow the recipe while getting volunteer hours for doing so. Through this activity, I grew close with many of the students while at the same time, was observing sociological concepts, such as impression management. There was a girl who was very hostile and rebellious towards the volunteers while the instructions were being given out. However, when the volunteers attempted to break down the language barrier by listening more attentively and encouraging the girl to speak more English, the girl was able to enjoy herself and socialize with her peers better.

The next activity left the biggest impression on me. The volunteer coordinator gathered the Trek students to discuss possible events and activities for the new year. Arguably the most important fact I learned that day was that the Saturday program could only receive funding if the neighbourhood house turned in 50 new Permanent Residence codes to the government per year. This meant that in order to keep the program running, the neighbourhood house had to attract as many new Permanent Residences as they possibly could, whether it be through means of prizes, or free food. It was a struggle to keep the program alive.

From this, I continued throughout the day, questioning myself, unsure of my motive to volunteer. I had originally intended to make a positive impact on the youth’s lives, but to learn that all I could do was sit at a table waiting for three people to show up for a giftcard draw was, to say the least, disheartening. To be perfectly honest, it felt like bribery to me. To advertise to permanent residences to bring their friends for a chance to win a $50 Metrotown giftcard didn’t line up with the program statement I had originally seen on the Frog Hollow website. Instead of “skill development, support services for post-secondary & career planning, homework support, and volunteer opportunities”, all that remained were false promises and a strayed mission.

Looking back at what I’ve just written, this all seems so negative and makes Trek seem like it isn’t a good choice to opt for. Before you stop reading, however, I’d like to say, as surprising as it may be, this experience helped me to grow in maturity and in understanding unfortunate circumstances that sometimes inevitably arise. The Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House and its staff try their best to provide a safe place for the youth. Even though they have strayed from their mission in a struggle to keep the program afloat, I believe and I hope that they can overcome this struggle. As upcoming sociologists, I believe we can learn much from critically observing real life situations, where not all is shiny and bright.

Whether your experience is similar to mine, or whether it is on a more light hearted note, I believe that Trek is a great opportunity to network, grow, and experience things you may never have before. Take advantage of this while you can, and I wish you all the best of luck!

Hello, my name is Nigel and over the past year, being in Dr. Greer’s SOCI 100 class has given me the opportunity to volunteer at the Strathcona Community Centre through the UBC Trek programme. This program has truly broadened my horizons and helped me make the most out of my first year in university. Going into the programme, I expected to find just another volunteering position. However, I have found that Trek is quite different from other volunteer placement programmes as the Trek committee actually hosts many workshops, seminars, and events throughout the year that helped me to connect my experiences in my placement with what I am learning in school.

The cap stream I am part of is entitled “Global Citizens”. As such, I find it key to focus on the term, and what better way to discover the basics of citizenship than to volunteer locally?

Strathcona Community Centre is a small rec centre located in the poorer neighbourhood of Strathcona in Chinatown. There, I was initially placed in the gardening program, where we would take care of the small community vegetable and flower garden outside. The garden here is to be shared with the children at the adjoining Lord Strathcona Elementary, and programmes often run for children to help out around the garden. In addition, towards the end of the year, I also started to help out with the Afterschool Adventures programme, which provides day care service for kindergarteners from Lord Strathcona.

At Strathcona, I was able to take note of real world examples of many of the concepts we learned in Greer’s sociology class. One example that stood out was how I noticed instances of concerted cultivation in Afterschool Adventures. Several times I noticed how staff members or other volunteers attempted to reason with the children when the kids wanted something, rather than simply giving them direct orders as natural growth theory would call for. At Afterschool Adventures, I was able to tie in many parts of the novel Time Bind that we read during the family studies unit, along with much of what we learned in class regarding it. In addition, discussing with the staff regarding the community centre has shown me real world effects of government policies and decisions, such as how budgets are allocated for different aspects of the community centre and delegated to certain programmes over others.

I find that my experience at Strathcona has allowed me to connect not only with sociology, but with all of the other courses in my cap stream. In my placement, I have witnessed events that can be tied just as easily to both political science or geography as they can to sociology.

Overall, I believe that my experiences at Strathcona Community Centre and in the Trek programme have both been essential to helping me understand this year’s course materials in the Global Citizens cap stream. I would like to thank Dr. Greer for presenting me with such a wonderful and enriching opportunity to both learn more outside of the classroom and give back to the local community at the same time. For those considering joining but unsure of time commitments, I recommend finding a placement on the weekends or in a time slot on a day when you are less busy. Once you start doing it, you’ll find that the transit to and from is much more of a hassle than actually volunteering. I highly, highly recommend this program as real world experience is an indispensable aspect of learning, along with the fact that it also looks great on a resume. Best of luck to all those thinking of doing it!

~Nigel

For the past six months, as part of my Sociology 100 class, I participated in UBC’s Community for Engaged Learning Trek program where I was a volunteer with the Kids First Program that is run out of Hastings Elementary. Founded 16 years ago, the Kids First Program offers children from Hastings and its annex Tillicum, many of whom are potentially at risk youth, a safe and inclusive after-school program from 3 to 6 P.M. Partnering with this community organisation has been a great experience and especially dear to me as I grew up in the neighbourhood (I even went to Hastings Elementary myself!) but beyond my own personal connection, the program has offered me an ideal environment to take my learning beyond the University setting. For almost half a year, I have volunteered regularly with the program, attending for two hours once or twice a week to tutor and play with children. While going in to the program I had a deep connection to the area and some of its challenges, approaching this experience with a critical, analytical lens all while creating relationships with students in the area, has allowed me to deeper understand some of the underlying social issues in the community and society in general.

Getting involved in the community through some sort of volunteering is something I would recommend to anyone and everyone, but why specifically Trek? For me what stood out about Trek was its connection to my education and the subject matter I was so often learning in my classes. In courses like geography and sociology, we constantly explored and critiqued the systems and institutions our society functions within and tackled various issues relating to – among many other issues – poverty, education, socio-economic inequality and housing. Through lectures, readings, and projects, my classmates and I were beginning to form a sophisticated understanding of these issues and for me Trek became a critical supplement to what I was learning. My knowledge I had gained in my academics gave me a new lens through which to see many issues, but Trek allowed me to use this lens and grow my understanding of the challenges many communities face first hand. At Kids First I was beginning to witness these issues while also being exposed to solutions – in many ways my placement gave much more meaning to what I was learning. It was a constant reminder of the significance of what I was learning but also an opportunity to add what I was seeing and experiencing in my placement to what I was already learning, giving me a much clearer understanding overall.

Specifically, to my experience, I was able to further understand the underlying social issues many families face in the neighbourhood of Hastings Sunrise in East-Vancouver and reflect on some possible ways to fix these issues. A vibrant and ethnically diverse community, gentrification and poverty are two of the most pressing issues the community is facing. One in five children in the area experience food insecurity and live in inadequate housing, and at Kids First, these at-risk elementary students are the target of the program. In my time volunteering I helped out as a tutor, helping students with their homework, but also providing social and emotional support by building meaningful connections. In the time I spent at kids first, I built many relationships with many kids and saw how impactful programs like Kids First are. It was truly a great experience and something I will do again and would absolutely recommend to anyone!

For my Trek placement I worked at Kickstand Bike co-op in East Vancouver. Kickstand opens its doors to anyone who wants to work on their bike. They provide a supportive workspace, equipped with tools, parts, instruction and support. They want to get everyone who comes through their doors on a bicycle.

The underlying social issues that a community bike shop like Kickstand helps to address are not as obvious as with social services like tutoring, mentoring, food distribution and family support. When you tutor someone, you give academic support they may not get at school or at home. When you mentor someone, you provide a role model where there may be none. When you provide a meal, you feed someone who didn’t have the means to feed themselves, at least for that day.

Volunteering at Kickstand opened me up to understanding some of the more implicit functions of community bike shops. Their goal of increasing the number of people riding bicycles is conducive to building social connections and a healthy society. As you ride the streets, you are exposed to the outside and engaged with your fellow citizens, your community and your city. When you drive a car or ride a bus, you are isolated inside the vehicle. You are just “passing through,” skipping by neighborhoods without making any connection. Riding a bicycle fosters a mentality that you are a part of the community, and bike shops like Kickstand facilitate those connections and foster them. Kickstand has been described as a space with a “living room quality.”

While Kickstand’s explicit purpose is to give people a space equipped with all the resources they need to fix or maintain their bicycles, one of its implicit goals is to provide a safe, community space. Anyone can come to the shop for any reason. No one has to pay to be in the shop. You can come in, have a conversation, relax, and just see what’s going on.

I think Kickstand is doing great things for the Commercial Drive community, but money, as with many small non-profit organizations, is a problem. With a larger budget I think they could reach even more people. Visibility and awareness seem to be a challenge for them. The shop is in a basement at the end of Commercial Drive, before it crosses East Hastings. It is a shame that I had never heard of the shop prior to my placement, because it has a lot to offer.

Bike shops like Kickstand are not the only solution to Vancouver’s poverty problem, but they are definitely part of the solution. I think they could do a lot to strengthen community ties across class groups, promote equal participation by residents, and support the city’s efforts to increase bicycle use in its attempts to become the world’s greenest city.

Regardless of whether you decide to sign up for trek or decide to work at Kickstand, if you need a used bike for the school year check them out!

Hi, my name’s Maria and for my first year at UBC I chose to join the Trek program. I can definitely say that it has caused me to have a much more engaged and rewarding first year at UBC. It’s definitely not for everyone, but I would personally recommend it for anyone who is new to Vancouver or even someone who commutes to school, like me, because it can be nice to explore different environments once in a while.

To start off I’ll give you some background information on my placement.

I volunteered with Frontier College, who are a Canadian based literature organisation. Through them, I was placed at Morley Elementary in South Burnaby to help out with their program called Discovery Club. My job was to engage with the kids and help them with their homework, and occasionally (if the weather was nice enough) we would go outside and play on the playground. I chose this placement because I had some background knowledge on how to interact with children through my years in tutoring, so I felt fairly confident going into the program. What I quickly came to learn is that I had never really been in a position of authority, I was always working under someone else. Trek in this sense helped me to gain a sense of responsibility because I was now partly in charge of a group of around ten children who were looking for me to help them and organise activities for them.

I also chose Morely Elementary because it was fairly easy for me to get to. I knew my first year was going to be tough, from adjusting to a new environment to the piles of reading I had to do, I wanted this to be as easy for me to get to as possible. I got lucky in this sense because the school was in a neighbourhood very close to my own. Working in a community that seemed pretty similar on the outside to my own is where I learned a second lesson: you have to dig deep to understand the full story. The longer I spent there the more I understood how important the work I was doing there was. My volunteer supervisor once explained to me that Morley is in a “high needs and low serve” community. This is where many of the sociological concepts that we had been learning in class really kind of clicked for me, concepts which included social mobility, gentrification, schooling and social class. Many of the children at Morley came from immigrant or refugee families. This means that there might be a language barrier between the families and the material that the children were reading, so when I was helping them with their homework I came to realise the importance behind my work. Helping them with their homework made it so that when they got home their work would be done, this meant that maybe the parents didn’t have to struggle with the language barrier, or if the child was home alone for an extended period of time and they had a homework related question it would get solved at Discovery Club. All the tasks we were doing were designed for the kids to get help if they needed it. The meals that we were providing for them were there because there was a chance that there wouldn’t be one when they got home. Us teaching the kids how to cook easy meals at home that didn’t require the use of a stove or anything more complicated than a toaster oven was put in place because they kids needed these skills. This put into perspective my position in my community but also what it meant for me to be attending UBC.

The biggest lesson I learned from Trek was that I don’t want my time at UBC to be wasted, that at the end of my 4-5 years I want the years to not only have been memorable but I also want to have made some contribution to the communities outside of UBC. Trek inspired me to look at careers where I can help others, that school isn’t just about getting a financially stable job it’s also about using the advantage I was given to help promote positive change. I still don’t know the specific career I will choose, but at least I have some newly found sense of direction.

Finally, I want to leave you with some answers to the questions I had when I was in your position.

1. What requires me to do the most amount of work, Trek or Discussion?

They both require the same amount of work, it’s just in different forms. Discussions, in my opinion, are based more on written work, like papers, and of course in class participation.

Whereas Trek required from me more time and dedication. What I mean is it meant that I had to be at my placement every week for about an hour and a half and then I got to go home. This was easy for me because I lived nearby, but if you live on campus you have to take into consideration what the route looks like in the middle of winter when it’s dark outside. Trek also had group dinners that you have to attend twice, they’re not incredibly exciting but you get free food. You get to meet with Professor Greer and your Trek classmates a couple times per month to discuss the program, they were a little intimidating at first but once you get comfortable they’re pretty cool. Finally, you have to write Trek reflections, which are based on your experiences.

2. Will I be missing out on any learning experiences if I’m not in Discussion?

To be honest I don’t think you will be. This is because help is available in a variety of ways in the CAP Program. You have your CAP peer mentors who hold group study sessions before tests, and professor Greer is available during her office hours she’s quite welcoming and I’m more than certain that she can answer any questions you have.

Trek also puts the terms and concepts you’re learning in sociology into perspective. There’s nothing more educational in my opinion than learning from hand on experience. Getting out there in the field is what’s all about.

3. Will I learn how to write university level research papers, if I choose Trek?

You will learn how to write research papers in ASTU no matter what, so no worries.

4. What happens if I choose Trek and then I realise that it’s not for me?

At the beginning of the year, you will have the chance to see how discussion works because you have to attend the first two discussion classes and write a small paper for it. After that, you have to make a decision.

5. Will I be spreading myself too thin if I do Trek and I have to commute to UBC?

this was one of my concerns because my commute to UBC averages 3 hours a day. It was not pretty, but I got a lot of reading and sleeping done. If you choose your location wisely then I think it should be fine. If you choose a placement that is either close to where you live or just easy to get to by bus then it should work out. Plus a major pro for Trek is that you’re not just going to school and then home, there’s a lot of chances to be independent in volunteering. As well as exploring new communities is always very educational and interesting.

Anyways, I hope I have answered some of the questions you have regarding Trek and your first year. I’m sure everything will go just fine whether you choose Trek or Discussion, sociology is an incredibly interesting course and you’ll have fun either way!

What is ASA/ What is its Role in the Community?

The After School Adventures program, located at the Strathcona Community Centre, provides a safe environment for children from ages five to twelve to attend after class. Being a community part of the Downtown Eastside, Strathcona faces various challenges of housing, alcohol and substance abuse, unemployment and development pressures. Majority of the residents are low-income, resulting in a problem of eviction, as well as community shelters turning away people due to their limited capacity. Living in Vancouver, one of the most expensive cities to live in in the world, this issue also contributes to the rise of others, especially regarding child poverty.

The 2015 Child Poverty Report Card States that the highest number of child poverty rates are situated in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, with of rate of seventy-percent. As a result, ASA not only provides parents a resource to watch their children when they cannot, giving a space for at-risk children to go afterschool, but it also provides the children a healthy and safe environment to explore different activities, and consequently promoting self-growth. The program balances healthy eating, with physical activity, as well indoor crafts ranging from crayon art to literature. In addition to providing the support that some children may lack, the ASA also provides healthy snack options that for some children may be their only meal of the day.

Source: “Lord Strathcona School” Wikimedia Commons. 2012. Web 20 Apr. 2017. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lord_Strathcona_School_02.JPG

A Day at ASA

3:00pm – 6:00pm

The children are divided by age. The primary children are grouped into two groups – ages five to six together, and ages seven to nine together – while the intermediate children are grouped ages nine to twelve together. The day starts off at 3:00pm with an afternoon snack prepared by the staff. As a volunteer, your main role is to assist the staff in giving out food, or keeping the younger children in their seats during snack time. After snacks, the rest of the time is dedicated to playing with the children, whether it be indoor crafts, taking them to open gym hours, or playing outside on the playground! You really have the freedom to do whatever activity you wish to do, although it definitely gets overwhelming at times to manage and allocate your attention to multiple kids .

On your first volunteer day, if you can, it would help to go a little bit earlier to familiarize yourself with the space, as well as get to know the staff a bit. Unfortunately I was not able to come earlier, and seeing it was the Halloween weekend, I was thrown into the mix of children going to the gym for the Halloween Fair. Trying to befriend the children was definitely a scary experience, and if you feel that it becomes too much, my advice is to ask a staff to introduce you to someone – trust me, once you really get to know one, it becomes a lot easier to go about the activities, meet the other children, and really get involved in the program.

My Experience

Being a Trek participant has definitely been an extremely rewarding experience. It has allowed me to expand my viewpoints and understanding of the community around me. Being from around Vancouver, and having volunteered in various programs and organizations around the city, I would undeniably say that Trek has allowed to me further understand the social issues that plague the city in and interactive way, one that has ultimately lead to many connections, to both the staff as well as the children, that I am extremely grateful for.

Getting to know the staff, and the running of the program was one of the most eye-opening experiences for me this year. One of the organizers for the program talked about both the positives and negatives of running under a neoliberal government – a concept that will be heavily covered in Sociology 100 with Dr. Kerry Greer, and one personally, I did not have a real grasp on its outcomes and impact in the society until I was integrated into the Trek Program. It was interesting to see the issues that she talked about, such as that even with subsidization and government funding “the ASA program still continues to run at a deficit”. This lack of funding is evident in the various makeshift and run-down equipment throughout the center.

Furthermore, this also leads to a larger staff per child ratio. Often times, especially when the staff is busy, and you are the only one around to really engage with the children, you’ll find that multiple children will be fighting for your attention. I found that during these times it is very difficult to allocate my time so that each child feels that they are getting the attention that they deserve (if a child does start crying, my recommendation: distractions, distractions, distractions!)

Children also love building forts! (and crawling into any small space that they should not)

So although you may feel at times that you are doing nothing, and that your presence can easily be replaced, trust me when I say the connections that you make with the children, and the feeling that you get when they run up to you in uncontrollable excitement, is indescribable.

Things to Consider

This placement, however, is one of the longer placements, especially with the added in commute time. The program runs from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm, which means if you are commuting from UBC, realistically you will have to dedicate an hour each way for bus time, making it a 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm dedication. My recommendation is to schedule your placement on a Friday, making it less stressful that having a five-hour commitment in the middle of the week when other assignments may be due the next day.

I would also recommending eating a bit before your shift, especially if you had class in the morning, or a really long week, and all you want to do is sleep after your last class on a Friday afternoon. It definitely gives you more energy through the shift, and more energy to focus on the children (especially when it is their snack time!)

Also, during the winter, wait for the bus downtown can be frustrating, especially when full buses go by you. I would highly recommend dressing extremely warm for the weather! Layers upon layers, gloves and scarves!

Overall I highly recommend the Trek program! Don’t be scared of losing the opportunity to write a research paper (trust me, there will plenty more to come!). Get out, learn, and explore the city!

All the best!

Maya

Works Referenced

First Call BC. “Child Poverty in Metro Vancouver” Fact Sheet. Family Service Toronto. Toronto. N.p., 2017. Web. 2 Apr. 2017.

Hi Everyone

Coming to UBC, I was pretty much lost, unsure of everything. Having lived in Hong Kong for the past 15 or so years, I had no idea what Vancouver was like, despite being born there. I had no idea what UBC offered in terms of opportunities. I wasn’t even sure what I was signing up for in the courses that I was about to take this year, such as sociology, geography, and ASTU. The name of the stream I was in under the Coordinated Arts Program (CAP) was a mystery to me: What does it mean to be a global citizen? What do the things that I learn in sociology have to do with being a global citizen?

In sociology discussions, one could either choose to work on papers and assignments, or choose to go out and volunteer, through the UBC TREK program under the Centre for Community Engaged Learning, and to submit reflections based on their experiences in their placements, positions where volunteers help in the operation of a group or organization in what they do. I chose to volunteer, through UBC TREK, in Beauty Night, which aims to help vulnerable women and other people living in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. To be honest, I first decided to take the TREK route because I didn’t want to face the daunting prospect of more papers and assignments, given that I was already taking six courses in the first term (which I really do not recommend you do), but in the end, I found volunteering through TREK a very inspirational and educational experience that enabled me to understand more about communities and my direction and commitment.

To me, joining Beauty Night has been an eye-opening experience in itself. Very often than not, we remain constricted by our perceptions of gender, and gender stereotypes. Not only was I breaking the gender barrier by having my placement in Beauty Night, an organization which was classified as a female-only organization by UBC TREK, but I was also breaking barriers by breaking gender stereotypes, applying manicures, pedicures, or massages, tasks which have usually been associated with females.

My experience in UBC TREK, in Beauty Night, allowed me to not only greatly understand the Vancouver community that UBC is part of, but also identify some of the sociological problems associated with it. Throughout my placement with Beauty Night, I was able to visit a variety of shelters in the Downtown Eastside, not only helping vulnerable women who have been victims of sexual abuse, but also aboriginal people, and people suffering from mental illnesses. Working with Beauty Night and understanding these population minorities is crucial because their presence in the Downtown Eastside, and in the shelters that we visit, more often than not have a lot to do with the lack of resources dedicated to aboriginal people, the release of mentally ill people into society due to the decrease of resources and closing down of asylums devoted to mentally ill people as a result of neoliberalism, where mentally ill people were no longer treated as patients but as criminals whenever they commit crimes, where ‘administrative segregation’ is used as a solution to their behaviour. The presence of these vulnerable women in shelters also indicated the gender problems existent in society, such as the gender wage gap, and violence against women in society. Understanding the challenges faced by organizations such as Beauty Night, such as the moving out of the people they serve from the Downtown Eastside to places like Surrey, as a result of gentrification, which hampered their ability to continue reaching out to them due to the poor transport network in Surrey, also further enabled me to understand relevant sociological concepts and problems in society.

Perhaps what is more interesting is the things I have reflected upon in my experiences and the questions asked in the monthly sociology discussions in regards to my experiences at TREK, to reflect on these sociological problems from another perspective: what are the reasons for the existence of volunteering and organizations in the Downtown Eastside, if the social system had been perfect and capable of catering to the needs of the people we help in the Downtown Eastside? Are a lot of the services we provide as volunteers in the UBC TREK program, such as tutoring children, and helping vulnerable women, supposed to be jobs that should receive pay? Is the reason why a lot of organizations and NGOs exist because the government ‘contracted’ the task of handling the needy, in a way through neoliberalism? How are these organizations funded, and would donors actually have a motive behind the funding of these organizations? On the other hand, in my experiences in TREK, I have gained valuable experience not only through serving vulnerable women, but also by listening to the stories and experiences behind every women I help while doing things like foot massages to them. Such activities have allowed space for conversation, and without that, I wouldn’t have learnt about the amazing lives behind a lot of those women, with some who had lives as models, or who had children leading lives in the music industry. Such things increase my understanding of the people that I serve, increases communication and helps build relationships, but most importantly, also helps me reduce the dehumanization prevalent in society towards people in the Downtown Eastside, through understanding and conversation, something, which I believe, is important as a Global Citizen, and something you will definitely continue to encounter in other courses such as ASTU. Being part of my placement in Beauty Night also allowed me to talk with other volunteers, where I have also met many people who have interesting lives, from voice actors to people who interned in the WHO, and quite a number of UBC alumni who may or may not have been part of the TREK program previously.

What is more important, however, in terms of applying sociological knowledge to my work in TREK, is how the things you learn in sociology can change yourself. During one of the last lectures of sociology, professor Greer talked about what we can do to change the world, to resolve the issues brought up in so many of our previous lectures. More often than not, a lot of people together become bystanders, and do nothing in the face of need. To solve this ‘bystander effect’, individuals have to make a difference and persuade other people to help through their actions.

At the end of the day, one of the best ways to bring change, is to be active in encouraging others to act. By joining UBC TREK and being part of Beauty Night, I was able to take action and actively engage with the community, and to translate these experiences into becoming a Reading Week Leader in the Centre for Community Engaged Learning, and in other experiences outside of campus, such as volunteering for and working with like minded candidates in the provincial elections this year, who hope to resolve the problems in the Downtown Eastside. I believe, it is with these experiences that can enable me to understand more about the society we live in, and to become a better global citizen by actively engaging in it. Don’t be discouraged by the time commitments required for volunteering, nor be daunted by the process of stepping out of your comfort zone. By volunteering, you can gain valuable experience that not only applies to sociology, but also to CAP as a whole, and also to you yourself as a person.

Good luck, and have fun in your journey through CAP and TREK!

Mathew

With the five months volunteering works, I have been worked in the drop-in program at UBC Learning Exchange. My work is to help residents to solve some problems. At the same time, I also have done different types of work to help my colleagues. Learning Exchange is an interesting volunteer position. Instead of working with children, it is chance for you to work with adults. It will definitely give you an different and wonderful experience.

Learning exchange is in the Downtown Eastside, which is an old community. This area is one of the city’s oldest area. In order to be responsible, I have to tell you that this is a community with a lot issue that you need to keep in mind. It is notorious for its open-air drug trade, sex work, and high rates of poverty, mental illness, infectious disease, and crime. So it is really a challenge for me to volunteer in this community. I have to admit that I was really scared by the first sight of this community. But I still strongly comment volunteers to work in this community. Even though it seems like dangerous and not as friendly as other place, it actually is a really good place and gives you a chance to have a look at another side of life.

I was working in the dropping-in program. Drop-in program is a program that allow residents of this community to have a access to internet and have a chance to use this new technology. Most of the residents coming to this program are not so good at using computers. So they will run to different problems when they are using computers. We also serve free coffee and tea. It also gives residents a chance to communicate with others. They will chat and read newspaper in this program. This whole program holds in the lobby of UBC Learning Exchange. My job is helping arrange the schedule of using computer and help to clean up cups at the end. At the same time, I also help residents to solve some simple computer problems.

It is a wonderful experience to volunteer in UBC Learning Exchange. At there, you will give away all your stereotypes and get a new understands to these residents who may be really in a low social states. For my own experience, when I first come to this place to get my orientation, I was really shocked by what I have seen. There are many residents with low-education level and in a not good finance situation. I was thinking to quit this program but I have changed my mind after several times of my volunteering work. I met a man in UBC Learning Exchange. He often wears a hat and sometimes he also uses a scarf to cover his hair. He always keeps several thin braids at his left side near ear. This man looks not having a good personal hygiene. But he always shaves his mustache in good order and cuts his nails neatly. Every time he shows up, he will have a cup of tea. He is a guitar player and brings his stuff with a small trail car. He usually uses computer to searching music score for guitar. One days, when we were chatting, my volunteer leader asked him how was his arm. He was suffering with tennis elbow. He answered that that is really serious. He almost couldn’t lift his arm in morning. So his doctor suggested him to give up playing guitar at least for a year. Then he answered “If I can’t play the guitar, I would rather broke my arm.” This really touched me. Later I known that he had his own live at a hall in the community.

With the experience in this community, I really discover the other side of this group of people. Maybe they have some issue with them and they are not so accepted by the society. But they have their life. That life may be tough but they still survive bravely.

As a volunteer in this community, you should get rid of that attitude that you are coming to help. Instead of thinking about helping others, I think we need to think about what I can learn from them. Just like this organization’s name: UBC Learning Exchange. Just like my volunteer leader has said “ We come here not just giving out. We also get some back.”

Trek is really a wonderful experience for me. It gives me a chance to get out of that university and get into society. As an international student from China, I had never seen this side of western countries. It is also a good chance for me to know the western society in the round. It helps me to break out of the boring schedule of keeping study. For my first year university life, Trek is really an important part. Through the course I took in the first year, trek program gives me chance to using what I have learned in to real life. And it also help me to understand my sociology class much better.

In conclusion, Trek is a wonderful program for your first year in university. It may be a little tough to keep working as a volunteer. But it really gives you an impressive first year. It has so much possibility for you. This program shapes your thinking of your life and future. It also is a good chance to practice your skills of getting along with others. So I highly comment you to take your chance to join Trek program.