Alongside the advantages and conveniences of modern digital technology come numerous risks and threats. A recently completed project helped 5-7 graders in Surrey acquire knowledge and tools to respond to the challenges of the digital world and empowered them to become responsible digital citizens.

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.

It’s back-to-school season, and for many, that means a whirlwind of challenges such as homework, exams, and juggling extracurriculars. Food insecurity should not be one of them. 24% of our new registrants in the past year were post-secondary students, and we expect this number to grow in the upcoming months.

From art-based co-creation or engaging with schools, to community advocacy and meaningful acts of Reconciliation and more, the winners of this year’s SFU Student-Community Engagement Competition are putting ideas into action with their community partners.

Community fridge now located in Maggie Benson Centre, the fridge is accessible to all. In the spirit of mutual aid, SFSS partnered with various community groups to address student food insecurity.

As SFU’s community fridge addresses one of food injustice’s most urgent symptoms – hunger – it also provides the extra benefit of preventing food waste.