After quietly beginning operations last August, UFV’s Peace and Reconciliation Centre (PARC) is announcing new events aimed at addressing intimate partner violence and is discussing its plans for the future.
Shaheen Shivji, who is currently a coordinator at the PARC along with her colleague Alfred Ochen, said the centre was first conceptualized by a group of UFV faculty including Jacqueline Nolte, dean of arts; Steven Schroeder, peace and conflict studies chair; and Garry Fehr, associate vice president of research, engagement, and graduate studies; along with community leaders.
Its coordinators said the PARC is the first of its kind in British Columbia, and seeks to provide programming that will address individual, community, and global needs, and inspire social change. The centre will tackle a variety of social issues, both local and global, including Indigenous issues, peacebuilding, and more.
“We hope to be exemplary, and maybe try to project it as the most prolific centre around,” Ochen said. “It’s like a fresh canvas,” Shivji added.
During UFV’s Town & Gown fundraiser last November, Fran Vanderpol announced that her family’s charitable Oikodome Foundation would be donating $100,000 toward supporting the PARC. According to Shivji, a strategy for how to best use these funds is still being worked on, but she said that its use will be “judicious and responsible,” and reflect the values of not only the donors, but also of the university and the PARC itself.
The first official event organized by the PARC was a panel discussion about peacebuilding in Central America held in conjunction with the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) last October. More events are now planned, including a series of three panels about intimate partner violence, the first of which will be held on Feb. 13 in partnership with the College of Arts.
Shivji and Ochen said that future PARC events could eventually take other forms, such as forums, art exhibitions, and book launches. However, they added that the centre is still in early days, and they won’t be able to speak about upcoming projects until more work has been done. The pair also said that the PARC could eventually have a hand in producing research, but not immediately. “Maybe in the long run [the PARC] will be seen as a potential ground for academic research, for fellowship … [but] those are some long-term projections,” Ochen said.
Despite what the word “centre” implies, the PARC also does not have a dedicated space on any of UFV’s campuses, though they hope that this eventually changes.
“It’s really important to have a physical space,” Shivji said. “Architecture communicates so much about who you are to the external community and internal community … but for it to happen, we have to begin a donor campaign. We need financing … but the leadership, and us, are certainly behind that.”
Image: Sam Young/The Cascade
Photo: Shaheen Shivji and Alfred Ochen
