ews & features EDITOR BAILEY NICHOLSON THE VOICE, TUESDAY, NOV. 24, 2015 7 Post secondary involvement crucial to incoming refugees Student groups accross the province are organizing help for Syrians | JORY SMALLENBERG submitted photo From left to right, Abbotsford mayor Henry Braun, Jory Smallenberg of UBC Student Response to Syria, and Deputy Police Chief André Crawford from York Region, Toronto at the National Character Conference in Abbotsford where Smallenberg spoke about the UBC Refugee Relief Movement. By BRIDGETTE WATSON n estimated 2,500 Syrian refu- gees are expected to arrive in the Lower Mainland in the next ew weeks and post secondary student groups are looking for con- crete ways to offer help. Ninu Kang is the director of commu- nity and development at MOSAIC, a non-profit organization that addresses immigrant issues, including resettle- ment. Kang explained that university and college groups have already played a critical role in mobilizing student and faculties to support Syrian refugees. “Emily Carr University of Art + De- sign called us and mobilized an inter- nal faculty and student campaign for financial donations and MOSAIC di- rected this money to to our Syrian Ref- ugee Settlement Fund,” said Kang. Jory Smallenberg, a third year arts student at UBC, connected with MO- SAIC at a campus lecture just over a month ago. Smallenberg, and fellow student Katriina O’Kane, started the campus group UBC Student Response to support the Syrian Refugee Crisis one month ago and it is now 50 mem- bers strong. The group has set a tangi- ble monetary goal of raising $72,000 to sponsor a Syrian family of eight. Smallenberg believes that students can do more than just pay lip service to the issue. “The general climate is that people are nodding their heads that they want to help, but no one is practi- cally putting that in place,” said Small- enberg, “Knowing what is happening to our brothers and sisters across the world, I just couldn’t focus on school.” Smallenberg credits MOSAIC with pro- viding the guidance her group initially required. Nadeer Abdullah, the president of the Syrian Canadian Council of BC, said that raising funds is important, but that student groups must work closely with the organizations they partner with. He cautions that organi- zation’s goals for mobilizing money may differ from the objectives of stu- dent groups and that these details must be worked out in advance. 66 The general climate is that people are nodding their heads that they want to help, but no one is practically putting that in place JORY SMALLENBERG CO-FOUNDER OF UBC STUDENT RESPONSE SCHOOLS with plans 1 Emily Carr Univer- sity of Art + Design organized a student campaign 2 UBC developed the UBC Student Response to raise enough money to support eight Syrian families 3 UFV has hosted a community forum on the refugee crisis Langara club members in support of Syrian cause Groups on campus plan to welcome refugees and assist in fundraising By JULIA WICKHAM ith an incoming wave of refu- W:- making their way to B.C. in December, some clubs at Langara College are raising awareness following the Paris terrorist attacks. Khaled Sukkarie, a member of the Langara Muslim Association, said he stands by his view that accepting refu- gees into Canada is the right decision. “It is our responsibility, not as a country, but as human beings to aid one another during times of crisis re- gardless of our social and cultural dif- ferences,” he said. Beder Bani-Ahmad, who is also a member of the Langara Muslim Asso- ciation said that the club is planning a popcorn fundraiser starting from Nov. 30 - Dec. 2 to raise money for Medical Aid for Syria, a local-based project that helps to send medical supplies and equipment to Syria. Sukkarie said he thinks the racism towards the refugees is due to the lack of exposure of the crisis to Canadians. “If people who are skeptical about this would take the time and do some research, they would find out that these attacks do not have anything to do with the Syrian refugees,” he said. Bani-Ahmad also said that the Mus- lim community has witnessed several hate crimes in Canada in recent weeks. “We have seen Muslim women being assaulted, and even had a mosque burnt. The vast majority of Muslims who have absolutely nothing to do with the attacks and those who perpetrated them do not deserve to be abused based on the recent attacks,” he said. Keon Lum, club pastor of the Langa- ra Christian Club, said the attacks in Paris shouldn’t affect a Christian’s view on refugees, and that prejudices just “add negatively to an already seri- ous humanitarian crisis and detracts from what needs to be done.” COMPASS CARD SENIORS, continued from page 2 “A lot of the concerns were about the fact that everything was going to be on- line.” Jun explained that many seniors that visit the centre also had concerns about being overcharged. Maria Abarca, a senior and former monthly pass user, has been using the Compass Card in anticipation of the change. She said, “I’m not r4 4 young I can for- get, sometimes I will forget to J’m not punch out.” The difficulty, Young, I according to can forget, Jun, is that ° though there are sometimes solutions to Iwill problems like be- ing overcharged, f org et to they are mostly punch out accessible —on- line. Many se- niors lack the technological skills to navigate the TransLink website, and would prefer person-to-person interac- tion. TransLink was unable to comment at time of publication. MARIA ABARCA SENIOR AND FORMER MONTHLY TRANSIT PASS USER TROLLS CREATE FLAP AND RACIST GROUP HOAX, continued from page 1 “We discuss all issues which impact the experience of white students,” said a spokesperson for the group, who de- nied requests to provide a name. They did add, however, that the group ex- ists partly in re- sponse to the City of Vancouver’s handling of the Syrian refugee cri- sis. “We sympathize with the plight of the Syrian refu- gees; however, we find it troubling that the media has praised wealthy Vancouver devel- opers for providing housing without questioning why this is being done at a time when so many Vancouver families and students are struggling to meet housing costs,” they said. Litsa Chatzivasileiou, a UBC gender, race, sexuality and social justice in- structor, said she and several of her students and colleagues are speaking out against the body within the week for espousing white supremacist val- ues. “Whether they are Internet trolls or an actual UBC student union the rea- ~ LITSA CHATZIVASILEIOU UBC gender, race, sexuality and social justice instructor son these ... groups’ voices are symp- tomatic of a broader Islamophobic and racist sentiment around the world and more specifically in North America,” she said, adding that they’ve sprung out mainly in response to the anti-refu- gee sentiment that is “taking place in Canada”. “On one hand, it’s a matter of igno- rance,” she said. “On the other hand, ignorance breeds hate.” Both the UBC administration and the Alma Matter Society (AMS) made clear that, real or not, the organization was in no way linked with the univer- sity. “We have a very clear sort of defini- tions as to what constitutes an accept- able and inclusive club on campus and in my opinion, the group would not meet those criteria,” said AMS presi- dent Aaron Bailey. In astatement, Associate Vice-Presi- dent of Equity and Inclusion Sara-Jane Finlay said UBC is requesting the orga- nization “cease using UBC’s trade- marks” and that UBC “is not responsi- ble for the content on this page and does not endorse its content”. OTHER schools affected 1 University of Toronto 2 Western Universtity 3 University of California Berkely 4 New York University "i'm proud to be Asian” said the Asian man. “i'm proud to be Black" said the Black man. “I'm proud to be White” said the Racist. FACEBOOK screen grab A comic posted to the UBC “White Student Union” Face- book page.