Posted on behalf of Kim Sicoli, Enrolment Services Professional, Student Support & Advising, Vancouver Campus

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the WUSC International Forum in Ottawa. WUSC is a Canadian NGO that “improves education, employment, and empowerment opportunities for youth […] to overcome inequality and exclusion1”. It was complete with live on-site translators, sessions held in French, and a diverse blend of university administrators, students, NGO participants and members of the public. The theme was “Global Solutions in a Fragmented World”. Some of the most pressing issues of our time – climate change, inequity, injustice – were being explored and a tone was set early on:

How can we better balance local aspirations with universal goals? And what role does Canada and Canadians play in this?

What does my role as an ESP have to do with this? Turns out a lot.

I learned from colleagues and students alike. I attended the conference with Sarah Cameron, International Transition Advisor from UBC, as well as Student Refugee Program (SRP) students. These students discussed their roles with the UBC WUSC local committee and some of the good work they are doing. Two UBC students that we attended the conference with presented their research and field work creating teacher education platforms and developing curriculum in the Dadaab Refugee camp in Kenya. Another student shed light on her vision to use data and information systems to drive social innovation and entrepreneurship in developing countries and led the way in discussion groups by challenging the status quo. It was great to see our students represent UBC in this way so well.

One theme that continued to come up for me in the various sessions that I attended was around understanding and working in context. One speaker, Widia Lariviere, co-founder of Mikana, reiterated that there are no ready-made solutions for any issue – we need to think about the context in which we are operating and who is being impacted and centering those voices. Debbie Owusu-Akyeeah, an Officer with Oxfam Canada, expanded on how to develop programming that is context-specific, intersectional (recognizing there are multiple facets of one’s identity) and promotes all actors’ agency in the process.  While there were many valuable speakers, these two particularly stood out to me, with their work on deep collaboration and capacity building.

Connecting this to the work we do in Enrolment Services, our work is collaborative and centers students as experts in their own lives. We endeavor to meet students where they are at and see them as people with agency and autonomy. I felt lucky to have the chance to hear from first and upper year students alike. Every student has a story. And while I may not be directly addressing global issues, the work that we do supports domestic and international students to be active agents in their lives and to see themselves as interconnected in the WUSC local committee at UBC.

For more information on the program, here is the WUSC Student Refugee Program website.

1 “Education Changes the World.” WUSC (World University Service of Canada). Accessed February 13, 2018. https://wusc.ca/.