Enactus team’s Project Open Arms and Students Offering Welcome help newcomers during transition
With the arrival of refugees to Canada, many organizations and programs have emerged to offer support. Some of these programs have even been designed by students, for students. On the University of Guelph campus, some of the most passionate students have taken the initiative to start their own projects and offer their time and energy to student newcomers.
Project Open Arms
[media-credit name=”Photo Courtesy of Tavleen Chahal” align=”alignnone” width=”1020″]
The Enactus team at the University of Guelph will be competing in a regional competition this upcoming week with their initiative, Project Open Arms.
Enactus is a community of student entrepreneurs who use business to tackle issues in their communities. Every year, Enactus teams from different universities present their ideas in regional and national competitions. This year, the University of Guelph Enactus team will present Project Open Arms to a panel of 200 judges.
Their project, as described by the president of the club, Tavleen Chahal, is one that “aims to empower Syrian youth by enabling them to share their stories.” The idea is to provide Syrian youth with a platform on which they can share their stories openly and debunk myths associated with being a refugee.The team was inspired to start this project when they noticed a need for it. Unfortunately, the media’s portrayal of many refugees makes them look inferior by only focusing on their struggles and weaknesses. They don’t often talk about their inspirations and accomplishments, Chahal explained via email correspondence. To bridge this gap, as well as offer financial literacy education to newcomers, Project Open Arms was created.
The team started work on this project in October of 2016 and has worked relentlessly since then to get it off the ground. “The project team has put hundreds of volunteer hours into this initiative,” said Chahal. The team organized a speaker series in which three Syrian student refugees took the lead by sharing their stories and showing what it’s really like to be a refugee with passion and confidence.
Students offering welcome
Another project that a University of Guelph student has initiated is called Students Offering Welcome. The project involves a group of passionate students whose mission is to offer hands-on support to refugees in the Guelph community, depending on their needs. In addition to the hands-on support aspect of the team, they also hold educational events, as well as fundraising initiatives.
The founder and leader of the team is a third year U of G student who started the club in her first year when she could not find a hands-on team dedicated to helping refugees in the community. She then took the initiative to transform her idea into an action group.
[media-credit name=”Photo courtesy of Sauvanne Julien” align=”alignnone” width=”1020″]
The team currently works with eight families, helping them meet their needs through translating, connecting them to resources in the community, and being there for them in general. Some of the things the club has helped with include renewing bus passes, buying feminine hygiene products, screening documentaries related to the refugee crisis, and organizing open mic events.
The team also organized an event called Home: Stories from Near and Far, in which refugees and immigrants were given the opportunity to share their stories of leaving home and integrating into new cultures. The event was described by the leader of the group, Sauvanne Julien, as beautiful, moving, and empowering.
The team is currently planning an event called “Ihsan,” which is an Arabic word that translates to beneficence or “kindness that can only ever be repaid with kindness,” Julien told The Ontarion. The event will focus on the topic of Ihsan, so refugees will share stories of times when they experienced Ihsan, or showed Ihsan to others.When asked about how she envisions the club in the future, Julien said, “this should be a resource for refugees within the community until it’s no longer needed, and the day it’s not needed will not be a bad day.”
While many students know of the refugee crisis, they are often unaware that this tragedy has affected a significant number of their fellow students. While both of these groups are fairly new, they have great potential to effect change. Both groups are currently accepting new members who are excited and passionate about community building. As Julien says, “at the end of the day, the refugee crisis is a human crisis.”
Photo courtesy of Sauvanne Julien