AMPUS NEWS — soroxsvoeesavtos THE VOICE, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2014 3 angara 0 host lm fest Films featuring justice and environmental issues will be shown on campus By DAVID LA RIVIERE val is coming to Langara next week. The Just Film Festival — formerly known as the Vancouver World Com- munity Film Festival — is part of the Canada-wide World Community Film Festival and has been exhibiting social justice and environmental activist doc- umentaries from around the globe for the past 12 years. Langara is hosting the festival, which runs from Feb. 28 to March 2. Along with the more than 40 profes- sional films, the two-day festival also hosts the Langara Student Film Festi- val, where a number of students in Lan- gara’s documentary film program get to display their own short films. One of the featured professional films is the Vancouver premiére of We Can’t Eat Gold, a documentary set in Alaska about indigenous resistance to a gold mine that could threaten the salmon runs that have sustained their people for generations. The aim of the festival is to bring light to local and global issues and to inspire the audience to make change in their own communities. “For people who are already activ- ists it’s a bit of a battery recharger,” festival co-ordinator Erin Mullan said. “So you get to connect with other orga- nizations, you get to see in the films what other communities are doing — individual communities around the world—facing similar issues.” The name of the festival was changed last year when Amnesty International and Village Vancouver came on board. Village Vancouver’s goal is to en- courage neighbourhoods and individu- als to “build resilient and sustainable communities,” according to the Village Vancouver website. “It’s people doing community level responses to things like climate change,” said Village Vancouver found- er Ross Moster. “Really it’s about con- necting people and their communities.” Tickets for the film festival range from $15 for an evening film to $35 for a festival pass. For an early bird dis- count, tickets must be bought by Feb. 21. Students get 50 per cent off all tick- ets, which can be purchased at justfilm. ca/tickets. B: largest social justice film festi- DAVID LA RIVIERE photo Ross Moster, Village Vancouver founder, anticipates film festival. ASH KELLY photo David Parke, an incomplete quadriplegic, will ride his bike 2,500 km for Spinal Cord Injury B.C. Quadriplegic aims to ride for charity After a biking injury, a Langara student plans to cycle his way from Whitehorse to Vancouver By ASH KELLY Langara recreation leadership student and incomplete quadri- plegic is determined to ride 000 kilometres on his bicycle to raise money for Spinal Cord Injury BC. David Parke, 47, was injured in a mountain biking accident in North Vancouver in June 2010. By riding from Whitehorse, Yukon to Vancouver this June, he hopes to raise $50,000 through the Ride for Spine fun- draiser. Being an incomplete quadriplegic means Parke has disfunction in all four of his limbs but is not fully paralyzed. He has a 20 per cent deficit of function in his hands and feet. To keep his feet in place on his two- wheeled bicycle, Parke wears shoes with cleats that attach to the pedals. “Tm trying to do the best that I can to recover from all of this,” said Parke. Aside from training for the long ride, parenting two girls and working part-time in the film industry, Parke is a part-time student in the recreation leadership program at Langara, after which he hopes to find full-time work. Apart from fundraising for his ride, Parke hopes to raise awareness about the difficulties faced by the estimated 2,400 people living with paralysis in ru- ral B.C. “IT know some people that are living in small towns that are just incredible . .. living on a farm with a wheelchair on a day-to-day basis, I don’t know what that looks like, but it makes my life seem relatively easy,” said Parke. Pat Harris of Spinal Cord Injury BC agreed rural municipalities have fewer resources available. While Vancouver has implemented accessibility bylaws, small towns lag behind in that regard. “Some of the towns are old, they were built back when the building codes didn’t have provisions for acces- sibility,” Harris said. According the Rick Hansen Institute, there are about 12,000 people living with spinal cord injuries in B.C. The average lifetime cost to someone with a spinal cord injury ranges from $1.6 million to $3 million depending on the severity of the injury. B.C.’s Medical Services Plan covers basic costs such as hospital stays and some prescription drugs. However, spe- cialist appointments, physiotherapy, naturopathy and equipment such as wheelchairs often come out of pocket for those who don’t have extended health care.“Whether it’s equipment or the possibility of getting grants, there’s quite a few things that would be avail- able to them through Spinal Cord Inju- ry BC,” said Parke. “They sort of pick up the pieces where the government can’t.” Spinal Cord Injury ME There are more than 86,000 people living with spinal cord injury in Canada ME There are more than 4,300 new spinal cord injury cases in Canada every year HE Approximately 51 per cent of current cases are the result of accidents HE Approximately 49 per cent of current cases are the result of disease Hi sApproximately $3.6 billion is spent on traumatic injuries alone in Canada Source: Spinal Cord Injury Canada Foreign Students make up for decline Increasing class capacity for international students will not be necessary By RENEE SUTTON students at Langara, no additional infrastructure will be needed due to a decrease in domestic students. “Over the last three years there has actually been a small decline in student population numbers . .. we’ve seen a decline of about 300 full-time equiva- lents in terms of our domestic student population,” said Ian Humphreys, vice- president of enrolment and business development at Langara. Since the fall semester of 2011, Lang- ara’s international student population has gone up 23 per cent, but the total number of students at the college has decreased two per cent due to the de- cline in domestic students. Therefore, even as international student numbers rise, no additional classrooms are needed. Ajay Patel, dean of international ed- ucation, said Langara would have the flexibility for a larger capacity if need- ed, with solutions such as online and night classes. International students make up around 10 per cent of the student body at Langara. In the fall of 2013 there were 994 international students en- rolled compared to 8,450 domestic stu- dents. Langara also won’t require addition- al instructors specifically due to the rise in international students, as the number of faculty are based on the number of course sections in demand. Humphreys said if there was a rise in capacity, more course sections would be needed but international students would only be a part of the increase in capacity and not a main contributing factor. As part of B.C.’s International Educa- tion Strategy, Langara plans to in- crease international student enrolment by 50 per cent between 2012 and 2016. The strategy aims to bring an addition- al 47,000 international students to B.C. during those four years, and provide opportunities for B.C. students to study abroad. D:*« an increase in international 0 a RENEE SUTTON photo Jia Cheng Hueo and Suraj Singh Sidhu are international students at Langara from China and India.