Hey, my name is Juliet and I am an international student at UBC from Norway. I have just finished a year in the Coordinated Arts Program (CAP) and through this, I have been taking an introduction to sociology (SOCI 100) course with Dr. Kerry Greer. Before we started the course in September 2017 we got an email informing us whether we wanted to participate in the TREK program or in a regular discussion group. My first thought was to be in a regular discussion group because I did not quite understand what the TREK program was and I thought that it was probably something that suited domestic students better than the international students. When we started class and we got more information about the two options I got more and more interested in participating in TREK as I saw it as a great opportunity to get involved early in University.
I volunteered at YWCA Crabtree Corner which is located on East Hastings in Downtown Vancouver. Crabtree Corner is a building providing services and programs to marginalized women and families living in the Downtown Eastside. They have services and programs such as safe and affordable transitional housing, parenting programs, support groups, and hot meal programs, among many others. When applying for volunteering at Crabtree Corner through TREK you could choose whether you wanted to participate in their “hot meal program” which includes working in the kitchen preparing food for the women-lunch they have every day or you could choose to participate in their “Saturday family activity program” where you do activities and explore Vancouver with families living in the Downtown Eastside that does not have the resources to allocate towards family activities. Personally, I wanted to do the “hot meal program” because it was during the week, it suited my schedule, and it was a chance for me to meet the women living in the Downtown Eastside and the people working in the organization.
Coming to Vancouver I did not know about the Downtown Eastside. But as I moved here and talked to people I learned that East Hastings was a “dangerous” and “sad” place; somewhere I should not go. But as I started volunteering in the neighbourhood I learned that the place is way more than “dangerous” and “sad”. The people I worked with had a personal story of their own and their own struggles, but they still wanted to keep working where they had received support before and had their friends. The people who worked there all had strong ties, hanging out outside of work or was related. This made it a little bit harder to connect with these people in the beginning, but after a little while, I was a part of the big family!
Volunteering at Crabtree Corner supported my learning in school by many ways. In sociology, it was cool to see the concepts we learned in class in real life settings. When we learned about stereotype threat in class I could see from the perspective of the people in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood. How people living in that area may conform to the stereotype about the people living there, like all the stereotypes I learned about them when I moved here. I also learned about the significance of strong and weak ties in the community; the people working together create strong ties with each other and sometimes with the people using the services provided at Crabtree Corner. The weak ties give donations to them, so they can continue to provide free meals and food and other important items such as clothes, toys, books, etc. And the significance of weak ties when connecting wealthier families with families in need during Christmas and other holidays when it is needed for extra food and other needs. I also saw examples of the working/poor class, minorities, poverty, and Aboriginal people that we had learned about in class.
The TREK program helped me to integrate into University because it was an opportunity to meet other people with the same interest as me; to volunteer. It also gave me the opportunity to involve myself in an early stage of university and to talk to people of authority, which can be scary when you have just started University. I also learned a lot during our TREK discussions and meetings by discussing what we have learned and experienced at our placements.
I am grateful for the experience I had at Crabtree Corner and the people I met there through the TREK program. I will encourage students to participate in the TREK program, especially first-year students because it is a great opportunity to get involved in the community and it was also an opportunity for me to get to know the city and the transit system better as a new resident in Vancouver.