At WUSC conference in Ottawa, Guelph chapter awarded people’s choice
Hundreds of students from across Canada gathered in Ottawa last weekend for the World University Service of Canada’s (WUSC) annual International Forum. The theme of the forum, titled “Great Development Debates,” served to spotlight just what its title says: the key challenges and hot topics surrounding international development.
Among these debates were market solutions for those in developing countries, mining and its relation to sustainable practices, and a panel on youth voices in development, which brought to light many issues in development such as education, water, migration, and approaching development on a contextual basis.
The conference also provided capacity building sessions for WUSC chapters across Canada and various research seminars on migration, bi-lateral discourse, gender equality, barriers to women’s empowerment, and food security issues. Not only were students able to interact with PhD candidates presenting research, but the conference also provided venues to interact with various development actors, such as the Canadian Council for International Cooperation and the Centre for International Studies and Cooperation, which partnered with WUSC to host the conference. Partners from Uniterra, WUSC’s study abroad program, were also present.
The University of Guelph was recognized at the Gala Night with two awards: the Event of the Year award and the People’s Choice award for the Local Committee of the Year, which recognizes an outstanding WUSC chapter.
The winning event was hosted in collaboration with Hunger Awareness Week in Guelph earlier in 2013, and served to raise awareness about the portions of food that would normally be distributed in a refugee camp. Students were able to spin a wheel and were either given a small portion of rice and beans, equivalent to what one that receive in a camp, or a slice of pizza. The small portion of food helped start the conversation on camps and illustrated the difference between a North American lunch and a lunch that would be distributed at a camp.
The local WUSC committee at the U of G, which has been an active and recognized part of campus for a number of years, was chosen for the People’s Choice award for Local Committee of the Year. The committee has held events on campus such as the Refugee Camp(us), which highlighted the materials that refugee camps can be made of, as well as the conditions of the camp. The committee is responsible for fundraising for the Student Refugee Program (SRP), which supports refugee students to come and study at the University of Guelph, and holds various fundraisers in order to meet this goal.
The local committee continues to extend its fundraising efforts across campus. So far, the committee has hosted the Refugee Camp(us) event and the Ride for Refuge event, where participants bike a certain distance to raise funds for the local committee. The committee has also strived to raise awareness regarding the Student Refugee Program.
The committee hopes to plan more events in the coming year that both contribute to the SRP and help to raise funds for the program at a national level.