Monthly Archives: April 2018

Hello future Trek Students,

There is plenty I would like to tell you guys. First, I should start by saying where I was placed: I worked at Mount Pleasant Elementary as an in-class helper. It is definitely an experience I would recommend if you like kids and consider yourself to be someone with patience. In terms of patience and respectfulness, you will learn – if you haven’t already – that kids have different paces of learning and attention spans.

One of the things that I appreciated from this project is that you get to look at a scenario like you haven’t before. In my case, that meant having a whole new perspective on the Teacher’s job. I was always aware and courteous to teachers, but having to closely follow one of them and observe their doings, made me gain a whole new appreciation. If you do get to volunteer at a School, I would encourage you to notice how much value you begin to give Teachers and the School Administration because of the new lenses you now regard the institution from. 

My “job” initially consisted of sharpening pencils, watching out for the kids while the teacher was away, accompanying students to the bathroom or office, and gluing stickers in their agendas. As the children warmed up to me and the Teacher noticed my sense of responsibility, my duties were extended to spelling words on the board, helping correct in-class activities, talking and interacting with kids, distributing work and maintaining order in class.

I definitely wasn’t aware of the authority that I had until one student called me “Miss Carol”. Surprisingly, I was not scared or overwhelmed by this authority I suddenly had because I already felt comfortable in the placement. However, looking back, I can see why this would have been a lot for me to take in at the very beginning. In that sense, it is good that the Trek program forces you to go frequently. I understand now that this policy is not just for the placement, but for ourselves to feel welcomed and assured.

Moreover, it is likely that this experience will help you realize that you are a university ‘kid’ now. Look how much you’ve grown. See if you identify with the teacher’s distress in calming down students and how essential class rules are. Consider how important the foundation of our learning is and be remembered that our entire lives, everything we learn, are just building blocks that create a path to a more enlightened version of yourself. 

In addition, participating in Trek has helped me integrate into University as I had opportunities to engage with Professors and different departments/offices at UBC that I didn’t know about.

Further, I got to develop friendships and bond with people from CAP as I shared experiences and frustrations with them.  Just having someone to talk to and compare experiences may seem like not enough of “an excuse” to do Trek but it is also a chance to learn about different programs and the distinctive Vancouver communities. Again, this may not seem important because this is only your first year, but trust me, it is the best time to have these experiences. 

Being an International student, Trek was an essential tool for me to engage and learn more about the city. In my country, we have a saying that translates more or less to “unite the good with the pleasant”, and that is what I did: I united my desire to volunteer and get to know the place, with my need to have work experience and the opportunity that Sociology provided me.

If all that still did not convince you, you might find useful to know that this is an excellent experiential learning occasion because many of the things that I saw in my placement were connected to larger sociological concepts seen in class. Just to name a few, I got to observe the applications of education, welfare, family background, wealth, networks and other simple things that would normally pass by me without even getting noticed.

One example of class material that really stuck with me was the reading we did on boys and girls stereotypes being projected into children. When I went to my placement, it was clear that there was a distinction between what girls and boys liked and played with that was a reflection of our societal standards and beliefs. Another one is how the amount of work done by the Principle and the Janitor of the School is not representative of their salaries. These broad concepts maybe not mean much to you now, but I guarantee you that they were extremely helpful for me to understand the applications of what we were learning.

To sum up, my only advice is: make the most of the time you have in your placement, learn as much as you can and enjoy while you are at it. 

Best,

Carolina

By Jessica Wang                       Placement: Littler Mountain Neigbourhood House – Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School

The Homework Club at Sir Charles Tupper Secondary School is a long-term program supported by the Vancouver School Board and Little Mountain Neighbourhood House. The purpose of this club is to provide academic and emotional support for students. The club runs every Tuesday and Thursday from 3 to 5p.m. at the school cafeteria. It operates in a free-flow basis, which students may drop-in any time to receive homework help, have snacks, play games, or just chat. I enjoyed the Trek program for three major reasons, which I will specify below. Nonetheless, the program could still improve in some aspects.

Front Door of Tupper Secondary (Apr. 5 2018)

The first reason I enjoyed Trek, is that I consider community engagement as one of the most necessary experiences during post-secondary education. Being involved in the community in university is much different than merely volunteering in high-school. The major reason for this is that post-secondary education is training us to develop a new perspective through working in communities. I was constantly applying knowledge learned in the classroom into real world experience, and exploring the connections between two settings. For example, in sociology class we learned (spoil alert!) that the marginalized groups usually have limited access to education resources (i.e. tutoring) and social connections (i.e. no one in their family have received post-secondary education). This has helped me to understand the significance of Homework Club. The program provides students from lower socioeconomic status with academic support, and they are able to meet people from universities (like me!) to learn about post-secondary experience, or even possibly encourage them to pursue post-secondary education. From Trek, I truly value the opportunity of applying knowledge to societal experience. Especially Professor Greer provided us with step-by-step guidance as we participated in the program, which is a great start and preparation for future research during the undergraduate degree.

Homework Club (Apr. 5 2018)

Homework Club (Apr. 5 2018)

The second reason is that the program is flexible, which allowed me to have better control over my time. As a freshman, one of the major challenges for me was time management. Therefore, when joining Trek, my primary concern was how time consuming the program may be. The programs provided many choices for students in terms of time management. For example, I could choose a placement closer to campus to save commuting time. I also coordinated with my supervisor on site over my schedule and attendance. In the Tupper Homework Club, I was able to decide a day and a drop-in-time to help out. My supervisor was also very understanding about student life. In response, I would also maintain a responsible and considerate attitude. In my experience throughout the program, the staffs from Trek and placements were always responsive and helpful, especially when I was managing my schedule and trying out placements.

One aspect the program could improve, is to provide a more comprehensive description for each placement. This would make the process of choosing a community partner much easier. A major challenge for me in Trek was not knowing what to expect next. Because of the uncertainty of the program, I really took a chance when I signed up for it. On the Trek web site, the int information about community partners was not complete. In order to find out more about each community partner, we need to navigate their organizational web site. Some placement don’t even have ha web site, so I had to apply for the placement, then personally go to the site or attend one of their meetings to figure out whether it works for me. If it doesn’t work for me, I would have to contact Trek manager to arrange a new placement and restart the process. Which was a waste of time and effort for myself, the Trek managers, and the placement supervisors. All of these could’ve been avoidable only if the information was readily online. Therefore, it is recommended to provide a brief introduction, meeting time, location, and a link to web site for each placement. This information should also be updated annually. So that the participants in Trek could read the descriptions, and make decisions based on their personal time, transportation, and interests. Although the work of creating a more detailed Trek web site may seem challenging, it would certainly reduce a lot of stress, panic, and uncertainly if the information was provided. Especially as freshmen, when we had to make wise decisions to allocate time.

Overall, I took a chance when choosing between Trek and Discussion Sections because I didn’t know what to expect. But I’m glad I chose Trek because I consider community engagement a necessary experience during undergraduate degree. It is helpful in developing the skills of applying knowledge in societal experience. In addition, the flexibility of the program allowed control over my own schedule.

Hello everyone !

As a first-year university student at UBC, I was very excited to explore the different opportunities the university offered to the students. When I first looked into the Coordinated Arts Program, I thought that the global citizen was the most interesting one for me having lived in several different countries. I decided to move to Vancouver to see the west coast of Canada. As I started sociology, professor Greer gave us the option to do this program called TREK under the Centre for Community Engaged Learning. This gave me an opportunity to learn about Vancouver as a city but also the struggles that lower-income people face today in society. At first, I thought it would require volunteering at the community center once a week to help others in need. However I discovered that it was a lot more than helping others, this opportunity has lead me to understand today’s capitalistic society. Most people that we meet live in shelters and are women. Some of the women also have children under the ages of 4.

I was placed with Beauty Night Society which is a non-profit organization that builds self-esteem and changes lives of women and living in poverty. There are three streams including wellness, life skill development, and makeovers that help woman along with their journey. I partake in the beauty services that they provide such as mini manicure and pedicures and massages. Most of the time, offering these services brings a lot of joy to these women. Another part of this position is to be good listeners. As volunteers, we engage with the woman to let them have an opportunity to rant about their lives and blow off steam. The experience I had with Beauty Night has made me understand several sociological concepts that we have covered in class.

Beauty Night exists because we have a lack of resources to share with all women from different social classes or racial looks. I think that these types of organizations are due to out capitalistic society. We often praise our society of being a free compared to communist countries. However, we realize often that our society isn’t as free as we believe it to be.

As we talked about in class about the ‘bystander effect‘where no one takes responsibility if there are lots of people involved. But working with beauty night makes us realize that there is something that we can do about it and it starts now.

The women that we are doing makeovers either live in shelters, or in rehabilitation in hospital. Women shelters are really young women originally from other countries, elderly women who broke their hip and others who are suffering from mental illness. Beauty night happens every single day of the week at different locations, mostly on the Vancouver Downtown Eastside. The woman who has children are vulnerable. We can see the gender wage gap.Women are inclined to stop working after having kids to take care of them however they do not have the resources to stop and take care of their child.

The single parent who is in poverty are generally women who have just immigrated from another country. I had a conversation with a lady from Morocco. She said that she had immigrated to Canada for her children. She claimed that there was not a future for her kids in Morocco. I asked her if she worked here, she responded that sometimes she would be called in to do manicures at a place downtown. This relates to what we have mentioned in class ‘ immigrated women’ who work in bad working conditions. This lady is lucky to have legal immigrant status compared to women who do not have papers to prove their legal identity.

We have also discussed the use of drugs. In one of the Beauty Night sessions, there was a poster on the wall cautiously advising people to be careful where you procure your drugs. Someone has been targeting women. As a class, we mentioned the importance of having a place where it would be safe to take drugs with good lighting and first aid nearby for emergencies. This is a great way for drug users to be safe and clean.

Overall, Beauty Night has been an incredible learning experience where I learned more about Vancouver, but also more about our society.

As a part of TREK this year, I volunteered at the Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House. I decided to choose this as my first choice, after navigating thoroughly through their website, because their mission is something that reflected my goal for TREK: Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House plays a leadership role in creating our community together by connecting people and strengthening their capacity to create change. After a few days of waiting, I was offered an interview. During this interview I was told that I would be involved in a placement that would provide working opportunities for disadvantaged people who seek employment. This placement is focused around a project called Luv the Grub. The people who a part of this project make jam and chutneys from bumped or bruised fruits and vegetables that did not make it to be sold in the market. My involvement in this project was the media aspect. I helped manage the Instagram account for Luv the Grub and take photographs of the jams and chutneys. This helped raise awareness to the project and hopefully increase the sales.

At the beginning of term two I was attended one of the neighbourhood houses events to help sell the jams and chutneys. At this event, I not only learned more about the project I was a part of, but I also learned more about the community and the people both living there, and the people helping those who are disadvantaged. It was very interesting to how diverse the projects were. There were some people who were selling soaps, jewelry, paintings, knitted clothes, etc. I really appreciated meeting other people who had the same goals of bettering the community as I did, and learning more about how other people’s projects tackle some of the issues that are prevalent in the community. This also made me appreciate how much time and effort goes into starting this projects and continuing to raise awareness about them.

My personal experience in TREK has helped me learn more about the variety of ways I can help improve the community and help the people around me. Being a part of the Luv the Grub project in particular has been a foundation for inspiring me to do more volunteer work in the future. 

I am extremely sad to say goodbye to the people who have made my experience with Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House a memorable time. For those of you who may in interested to learn more about Luv the Grub, I will leave their social media links below! I would also like to thank my mentor, Sylvia, for giving me the opportunity to pursue my interests (social media and photography) and using my skills for a great cause.

• Luv the Grub website
• Luv the Grub Instagram

Hi there!

My name is Ben Stanislawski. Throughout my first year in university, I have been participating in the Trek Program as a volunteer for the Strathcona Backpack Program. As the year has progressed, I have benefited greatly from my time in the program and I am writing here to hopefully garner some interest for future students.

Map of Vancouver. Strathcona is located in the North Eastern section of the map, just east of Downtown and north of Mount Pleasant.

The Backpack Program is run out of the Strathcona Community Centre (SCC), led by Lauren Brown. Lauren and a team of volunteers work together every week to prepare packages of healthy food to be donated to families across the Strathcona neighborhood who are in need. The premise behind the program relates to the fact that many poor kids receive free or subsidized lunches throughout the school week, however, throughout the weekend, they do not have this support and are often left on their own. If the child’s parents are in dire financial circumstances, they will often turn to fast food or other unhealthy options as a way to feed their kids. Children need healthy food to grow successfully, and the Backpack Program was designed in order to fill that void. Through donations from local grocery stores and businesses, the program donates baskets of fresh produce, vegetables, and dry goods to families throughout the neighborhood of Strathcona.

Packed baskets of food on a Thursday afternoon, ready for pickup on Friday

As a volunteer, I went to the community centre once a week throughout the school year for packing sessions. I worked with other volunteers to sort out the baskets for various families/communities and allocate each the proper amount of food for the number of children. Some families have up to 7 kids, so a lot of food needs to be delivered in order to keep all the children healthy and full. On Fridays, there is a market for program participants where they can come and pick up all the food they need for the weekend. While I never actually met any of the families receiving the food, it felt very good to be a part of something bigger that was having a positive effect on the larger community.

In our sociology class we have recently covered topics relating to poverty and income. This is an especially relevant topic for Vancouver, due to the large amounts of homelessness afflicting the city, predominantly near Downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods. According to the SCC’s website, “The Downtown Eastside Strathcona neighbourhood is part of the V6A area code, which records the lowest mean incomes in all of Canada.” The poverty is truly widespread, making childhood in Strathcona extremely difficult. One of the most basic human needs is to have something to eat, to be properly fed. In order to do basically anything else in your life, you need food, and the reality in places like Strathcona right now is that many people do not have that bare minimum. In class we learned that poverty is regional, and most likely in urban areas. This often relates to the family situation of those afflicted, such as a single parent household (typically single mothers). The nature of this poverty is systemic, and organizations like this one are doing their part to help mitigate the pain.

It is sad to be leaving Strathcona, but I am happy with how my time here has gone and the work that I have done. If anyone has any questions about this placement, please let me know.

More info on the Backpack Program can be found here:
http://sccbackpack.blogspot.com/

Placement: Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House

Dear incoming students, welcome to my blog!

Like yourselves, a year ago, I was browsing blogs just like this one in hopes of learning more about Trek. I had many uncertainties and questions. What should I expect from joining Trek? What sort of roles will I take on at my volunteering placement? Is it a good choice for my education? In the end, I took a leap of faith and joined Trek. Eight months since then, I am here to tell you that it has truly been a rewarding experience and I invite you to take that same leap of faith.

The months that I have spent as a volunteer at the Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House has been a colourful experience. The highlight of my time there is the variety of people I got to work with. As Frog Hollow is an organization that seeks to cultivate a healthy and diverse community, throughout my volunteering, I got to meet individuals of all different ages from different cultures and countries. In the end, it is these people who have made my Trek experience truly enjoyable. The staffs at Frog Hollow are all very warm and supportive. The thing that surprised me the most was how much trust they invested within me. My supervisor seemed genuinely interested in my opinions and even asked me to help her plan future volunteering activities on several occasions. The members of the program that I worked with are international students who come from various parts of Asia. It was nothing short of fascinating to observe at such close proximity how these different ethnicities and nationalities, with their different languages and cultural practices, intersect and interact with one another. This diversity in community has made Frog Hollow a rich learning and research environment for a sociology student.

A key aspect of Trek is that it offers a site in real life where you can apply your learning. Perhaps you already know that. However, as it is a rather abstract statement, I will provide my own understanding of it through my experiences. Instead of exploring the academic concepts one learned in class through online research and readings assigned in discussion sections, Trek students have the opportunity to observe these concepts take place in real life. As Trek students are expected to write reflections of their volunteering experiences and relate it back to their course material, the same time that I am an involved participant at Frog Hollow, I am also a bystander observing and identifying the sociological forces propelling the social and cultural dynamics within the organization. My supervisor helped to facilitate my efforts by providing me with a lot insight into the community that Frog Hollow works with. She informed me of the hardships facing the international students, the economic problems associated with funding neighbourhood programs and even their interaction with governmental institutions. I believe that these real life instances make learning more three dimensional and academic information more relatable to our daily lives.

Beyond being a help in my academic endeavours, Trek has helped to integrate me into the university life by providing a social platform and extracurricular opportunities. At Frog Hollow, the importance of community is emphasized above all else and I find the same principle valued in the overall Trek organization. Aside from going to your volunteering placements, Trek requires you to attend several workshops and dinners where you get to mingle with other Trek students and explore social issues. This expanded my social circle at UBC for I got to meet students from different majors and years. Trek also made it easier for me to navigate the expansive resources offered by UBC by helping me tap into the vast extracurricular and leadership opportunities offered on and off campus. With its team of student leaders and staffs who advocate for further student involvement within their communities, Trek has enriched my university experience by extending it beyond that of my academic life.

All in all, I encourage you to sign up for Trek! Use the opportunity to learn outside of the confines of classrooms and get to know the society that you are about to enter, instead of simply reading about it. I’m not saying that Trek will be the perfect experience. It certainly has its disadvantages. The greatest challenge that I have faced this year was the time investment it required for me to commute back and forth between campus and my placement. However, like every problem, there is a way to navigate it. I learned that as long as I managed my time wisely, the 2 hour transit every week was no problem. The community experience and the connections I gained from Trek are well worth the challenges that it presented. If you are a hands on learner, this is a leap of faith that I strongly recommend for you to take.