Crossroads Café, an event being held on Nov. 17 in room K149, is an intersectionality workshop organized by two exchange students at UFV. Xymphony is from the Netherlands and is in her final year studying psychology. Laila, from Denmark, is in her final year as well, studying business. The two students are part of UFV’s Living Learning Community at Lá:lem te Baker, which focuses on anti-racism, systemic injustices, and advocacy on these issues.
Laila spoke about Crossroads Café, and what led to creating the workshop: “In the Living Learning Community, we were encouraged to do a service project which could give back to the community, and Xymphony and I teamed up. We had some different ideas, but in the end, we wanted to make it work to combine these two topics together.”
“To add more to that,” Xymphony said, “we’re very much inspired by the lecture given to us by Sundeep Hans, the diversity and inclusion director at UFV. In that lecture, she talks about intersectionality, and that just sparked our interest to combine our two interests into a workshop that suits everyone.”
The workshop will be broken out into segments, defining the root definition of intersectionality as being a unique overlap in individual identity, and the different forms of oppression that are developed as a result, as well as providing information on inclusivity. As Xymphony described, “So, for example, you have diversity, equity, [and] inclusion. Those are important definitions that you have to look to before talking about intersectionality.” Later on, participants will go through exercises so they can discover parts of their identity that are intersectional and members will be able to learn from them.
Laila followed by going into depth about the activities. “The sections we’re asking them to fill out in that exercise is based on the Human Rights Code in B.C., so we hope that this exercise makes them aware of their advantages or disadvantages… making people aware of their own intersectionality. This is what we hope to achieve and all of that is going to be hosted in a café kind of vibe to make everyone feel very comfortable.”
Laila and Xymphony continued to outline their inspirations for joining the Living Learning Community program. Laila explained how the book Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall lead her to want to make a change.
Xymphony said, “I just wanted to advocate for more diversity inclusion, and especially in my field, psychology, and it’s very important to have knowledge of where other people come from and how they come to their beliefs from their perspectives. And also how I feel like knowing those differences, and knowing their intersections, are also crucial to know how you should treat someone in a clinical sense, but also interpersonally because in mental health there’s a lot of stigma, a lot of mental health poverty. For me, it was just in general, from my studies and what I find important.”
The intersectionality workshop will be hosted on Nov. 17 in room K149 from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Students or faculty interested in attending can email Laila to register at laila.buhr@student.ufv.ca.
