By Katherine Gibson (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: January 22, 2014
Not every student has the money to travel the world and study abroad.
But the international department’s new global citizenship grant is helping to bring a little of that global spirit closer to home. The idea? Every student can take part in actively building an international community here at home on UFV’s campuses.
The grant aims to financially support student-led events on campus that encourage a globally aware student body, working in conjunction with UFV’s mandate of an internationalized campus.
“We’re on our way in programming to lessen the gap or divide between domestic students and international [students],” explains Kara Bertram, UFV’s international contract training and study tours co-ordinator. “Through this grant and other initiatives we’re trying to bring awareness that ‘international’ is for everybody.”
This kind of support was previously available through grants like the internationalization fund, but that financing was available for staff and faculty initiatives only. Now students can work toward a more globally minded campus.
The global citizenship grant gives UFV clubs and associations access to approximately $3000 in funding for campus events.
Due to the grant’s global mandate, one of the main stipulations for accessing this money requires at least two clubs or associations to work together as a team. Bertram is hopeful that this will inspire events on campus that connect students, while building unity among the groups that run on campus.
“We want to have different groups work together and come up with potentially even more engaging and meaningful projects,” Bertram explains. “For instance, we could have the India student club apply for this grant to throw a Diwali celebration, which they would do anyways … but what if they worked with someone else? What if they worked with, say, history [students]? They could come up with something even bigger.”
Bertram also notes these events have the potential to link local issues with those happening on a broader scale around the world, adding another layer of international understanding among students.
“The events can be a local issue that has implications or connects to a global issue, or it can be a global issue that affects us locally,” Bertram says. “It’s important to increase understanding of each other, [between] domestic and international.
“Learning from each other, working together, sharing perspectives and knowledge and experiences, and just the interactions that occur as well,” says Bertram, “will bring awareness of global and local issues to the greater UFV community.”
