I hope everyone has heard about WUSC. If not, I will give you a brief summary of the purpose of this organization’s existence. Founded in 1957, WUSC mission is to promote and facilitate education for students all over the world, especially those who live in unsuitable and don not have access to the life necessities. The main goal of this movement is to provide the same opportunities for everyone regardless of their ethnicity, religion or any other demographical differences. WUSC operates in different countries, different continents, such as Kenya, Jordan, Lebanon. This organization funds a program called “SRP” which is ran by local committees that sponsor student refugees to resettle in Canada and help them pursue higher education in safe and friendly environments at Canadian post-secondary institutions.
As the representative of WUSC local committee at UNBC, two members of this committee and I headed to Vancouver to attend a meeting held at UBC. The purpose of this meeting was to familiarize new members of this club and the ones who are interested to take part in club’s activities with the core objective and teach them the basic knowledge required to be considered as a trained member. Looking around, you would see people coming from different institutions to exchange ideas and opinions in order to find the best alternative to each issue. The fun part of this gathering was the opportunity given to each group to take initiative and be creative and having this diverse perspectives give WUSC the edge to come up with efficient and effective solutions.
Another program WUSC created to promote a integrated system working together to overcome challenges; It is mentioned in the description of this program that” We live in an interconnected world, but not all of us are affected on the same level by the increasingly urgent social, political and environmental changes our world faces.” It encourages others to spark a critical discussion on campus about how Canada can contribute to global development at a local or national level. Uniterra definition is #oneworld and it reminds us of the effect our action have on others as we live on the same planet and our actions impact others all over the earth. This concept is taken by a large group of people who believe that these lines drawn between countries are imaginary and no matter what we should respect each other and collaborate with each other to eliminate all the inequalities putting burden on effort exerted toward these issues. One of the top subjects that has been attracting attentions is gender inequality; ‘shine a light’ supports refugee girls’ education and “manage expectations of household work and family care, displaced and conflict-affected girls often miss classes or drop out of school altogether ”Local committees help raise funds so WUSC can increase its’ capacity to protect displaced girls and enables them to show their capabilities in a dynamic environment. WUSC tries to spread this awareness among Canadian people and raise funding in order to reach its’ goals in this field of activities.
Beside all of these activities in new aspects, WUSC is still focusing on its’ program SRP by establishing offices in new countries and open this program to students in other nations that are recognized by WUSC to be eligible for this scholarship. Unfortunately the number of countries struggling with inner conflicts is increasing and it is adding to the number of students not able to have the chance of educating in post-secondary level.
In addition to all the supports WUSC offers to local committees, it give access local committees to a limited budget to hold one world symposium and introduce other students in campus that are not aware of WUSC programs and let the ones interested in these kinds of activities to join and bring their ideas to the organization and contribute in problem solving sessions and bring up with solutions. You can apply for this limited fund on their website MYcommitte and share your thoughts with them and as they say, they are there to guide us toward the right way and help us to reach a comprehensive solution.
Aside all the activities this organization is involved in, it prepares a friendly and lovely atmosphere for its’ members not only to influence and impact the way we cope with problems, but also have fun and enjoy their time working as a team.
As a guest at the latest meeting in Vancouver, I met with students with different backgrounds who have passed through tough times that would be unimaginable to us and that’s the time we appreciate all the works done by WUSC CANAD and we hope this organization to continue to hold the same attitude toward students lacking the opportunity of education all around the world.
