By Nadine Moedt (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: February 19, 2014
Since the global development studies bachelor of arts was launched in January 2013, the program has had students in placements around the world. Interns have travelled to India, Tanzania, Malawi, Kenya, and China, while other students have been working with Amnesty International on a more local level.
According to associate professor in geography and the environment and program co-chair Garry Fehr, the program provides students with the history and theory of development first, then offers skill development. Everything from cross-cultural communication and advocacy to business management falls into this category. Students are given the opportunity to specialize; Fehr explains that a student could choose a specific area of interest, such as web design or photography, to focus on.
Further, the program offers students an opportunity to practice the skills they only learned previously in theory.
“We don’t want students to just read about the theory of development,” Fehr says. “We want them to see how it’s played out in real life.
“It’s one thing to learn about cross cultural communication in the class room, it’s a whole matter to practice it.”
About 15 students are currently declared in the program, according to Fehr.
The latest group of students returning from their internship hail from Chandigarh, where they worked with an NGO called Developing Indigenous Resource (DIR). In a previous interview they spoke about their experiences during the program and their time abroad. Now home, Alyssa Bougie shares some specific experiences during her internship.
Bougie began in the bachelor of science program and first heard about the global development studies program through an instructor in the geography department. She followed her passion for sustainable agriculture all the way to Chandigarh, where she lived in a Janta Colony, a slum with a population of 17,000.
Bougie says she spent time on many different DIR projects, working on everything from giving composting demonstrations and setting up rainwater collection systems to “preparing empty metal milk powder containers to be distributed as pots” by laboriously cutting the tops off the canisters with a can opener.
As well, Bougie worked on an income generation project, where the DIR hires seamstresses to teach local women how to sew.
“Those women then go on to create products for DIR and are paid a fair wage in turn,” Bougie says. Products like fabric wine bags, purses, and iPad bags are made from material donated by shops around Chandigarh. Bougie’s job was to design products, ship orders, and be part of the marketing.
Bougie did encounter some difficulties while abroad.
“It was very hard to work with people from Janta Colony and get to know and love them, and to go back to our nice air-conditioned apartment at the end of the day while they go back to their tiny one- or two-room home, sometimes housing five or more people,” she says. “It didn’t seem fair to me.”
Despite the cultural and economic chasm between Bougie and many of the people she met, Bougie says she made some good friends and close connections. In particular, Dhruva, a girl Bougie’s age, made a lasting impression.
“She was very excited to show me around the bustee and always wanted to be around the other interns and I,” Bougie says. “She said she would teach me Hindi, and she did. I know a tiny bit! We got along really well.”
About halfway through the internship Bougie learned that Dhruva’s parents had arranged a marriage for her, to a man she only had a photo of.
“She was amazingly strong about this despite the fact she was being ripped away from the life she had always known,” Bougie says. “It really made me appreciate the freedom that we have as Canadian women … I’ll always remember and I hope to see her again the next time I go to India.”
Bougie isn’t sure what she wants to do when she graduates from her program, but according to Fehr, her options are not limited.
A graduate from the global development studies program has the field experience that allows for an easy transition into a master’s degree, as well as the qualifications to manage NGOs or other such hands-on, ground-level placements, Fehr says. One recent graduate now works in Milan, where he is part of the International Labour Organization there.
The global development studies program operates in a responsible manner; its goal is to show people what can be done with the material they have, and to be able to equip locals with skills so they can operate independently when the students leave.
“Development is not students going in to do someone else’s job or babysit children in an orphanage,” Fehr says. “The idea is to develop capacity, so to create greater skill, strength, perhaps launch a program and get people working on it, but it can’t be dependent on the students being there.”
