Community Engagement in Action

Featuring rich programs of community-engaged education, arts-based engagement, and technological innovation, this year’s winners are addressing food security, migrant history, cultural connection, intergenerational knowledge-keeping, gender-based violence, access to education, the toxic drug crisis, climate grief and hope, reconciliation, and homelessness.

On Wednesday, February 28th, two APSA board members helped us gather, sort, and prepare to give out food to SFU students and staff who had registered to use the Pantry that day. We hope it was fun! We know it makes a huge difference.

With transphobia growing in Canada, non-binary people in this country are asking for policies to protect them in sport, but they have been continuously left out of the conversations that should inform these policies. That’s where Martha Gumprich’s project comes in.

When COVID-19 hit, we all realized the importance of having a local neighbourhood network. Many people experienced major changes in their lives, such as losing their income and social network, or losing access to activities that supported their overall well-being. As a Roots of Empathy instructor who was fortunate enough to have a strong network of support, Rita Lee started looking for more ways to be of service to those around her.

In 2022, Ritu Mehra, Harbir Dhaliwal, and Muskan Jammu partnered with local schools to start a breakfast program that incorporates fun education about healthy food choices. More than just a project, Let’s Do Breakfast was inspired by their own personal experiences and their desire to give back to the community.

When then-Simon Fraser University (SFU) student Saba Fatemi and her peers won the 2019 SFU Student Community Engagement Competition with their “CommuniCreate” initiative – a program for refugee and newcomer children pre-pandemic – she didn’t specifically have Ukrainian children in mind.

The Faculty of Education is excited to have partnered with SFU Public Square, Moving Forward, The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the SFU Office of the Vice-President, Research and International, and the SFU Surrey-TD Community Engagement Centre for the Cross-Cultural Mental Health: Research and Practice Forum on May 5.

Featuring community-engaged research, policy-targeted knowledge mobilization, equity-serving knowledge translation, and even Bertie, a breakfast banana mascot, this year’s winners of the SFU Student-Community Engagement Competition are bravely building community partnerships across BC in order to tackle challenging complex issues, like Islamophobia, food insecurity, health justice and more.

In early 2021, about a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, five students from SFU and UBC came together to persist in their passion for bringing STEM to young learners in Surrey. Delivering their program met with some challenges, but as with so much community engagement work, maintaining respectful communication with partners continues to allow them to engage in their passion for engaging young leaders and learners.