Thursday 4 December 2014

Shop Local: Pottery Sale!

Tomorrow--Friday, December 5--you'll have another chance to do some shopping right here at Lambton College. 

The folks in our ceramics studio will be selling their creations from 10 until 4:30 in A-hall.

I bought several Christmas gifts here last year, and I also bought a mug for myself. It's a chance to support our creative students and faculty members. Here's my beautiful mug:


The sale is also a fundraiser: ten percent of each purchase will support Potters for Peace, a charity that works for clean water for all. If you're looking for pottery that comes with a story, tomorrow is your chance!




Monday 1 December 2014

Giving Tuesday

Giving Tuesday: December 2

Tomorrow at 11:40, the Lambton College community will celebrate Giving Tuesday. If you’re free, join us in the lower cafeteria to check out the “Tree of Giving.”


The “Tree of Giving,” a maple tree donated by the folks at DeGroot’s, will be decorated during tomorrow’s kick-off events and later planted at the college. 

Donations in this campaign support 26 local organizations, and donating is as easy as texting SLGIVES to 20222. Follow the conversation with #SLGIVES.


To find out more about this project, visit sarnialambtongives.ca.

Thursday 27 November 2014

Happy Buy Nothing Day!

Tomorrow is Black Friday, a day when the malls will be packed, the lines will be long, and the shoppers will be grumpy.

The day after American Thanksgiving marks one of the busiest shopping days of the year. If, like so many others, you’re tired of the push for endless consumption, you could celebrate Buy Nothing Day instead.

Just as you’d guess from its title, Buy Nothing Day is a day that encourages us to save our money and instead appreciate what we already have. Some people have begun to celebrate Buy Nothing Day in more visible ways, too: “Zombie Walks,” which are popping up everywhere, invite people to dress up as the living dead and to “wander around malls, marveling at the blank, comatose expressions on the faces of shoppers”; and in what’s known as the “Whirlmart” protest, anti-customers push empty carts around big-box stores without buying anything. (See Adbusters for more on these increasingly-popular traditions.)

And there are other alternatives to Black Friday and its new counterpart, Cyber Monday. 

Giving Tuesday is a new trend that asks us to spend a day giving to others. The organizers of Giving Tuesday describe the day as “a time to celebrate and encourage activities that support charities and non profits. Whether it’s making a donation, volunteering time, helping a neighbour or spreading the word, Giving Tuesday is a movement for everyone who wants to give something back.” You can read more about Giving Tuesday here 

Buying local is another option, and if you’re near Lambton College on Monday, December 1, you could stop by the Annual Haitian Art Sale (from 10-2:30 in A Hall). The work being sold is handcrafted in Haiti and brought to Canada by Lambton College students, and the proceeds return to the Haitian community. Students will also be selling Rayjon Fair Trade Organic Coffee, which funds Rayjon's work in Haiti, and Simbi hairbands, the proceeds from which fight cholera. 

Whatever your decision, the idea is to think before you buy.

Happy Buy Nothing Day and Happy Giving Tuesday!




Friday 14 November 2014

Our International Students

Thank you to our panel of international students--Chris, from India; Jade, a global nomad; Eugene, from Burundi; and Lorena, from Mexico--who shared with us yesterday stories of their time at Lambton College and their reflections on life in Canada so far. 

The conversation was part of the Centre for Social Justice lunch-and-learns, a series that’s been devoted to encouraging connections among the members of our community. 

The student participants told us about things they’ve encountered at Lambton and in Sarnia so far.

Chris says that in Sarnia, “you know every second person you meet,” which helps the community to feel like a warm and welcoming place. The students all said they found Lambton College friendly, and that Canadians have been polite and accepting so far. Many of the comments were positive--so many, in fact, that I began to wonder whether the students felt they could share criticism at all. Did they feel pressured to praise the community and the school? In fact, when they were asked to share their dislikes about Lambton, one of the students leaned over and whispered to her neighbor, “Be careful.”

But her neighbor laughed, and she did too, and I hope the students felt free to share their true feelings. They had many positive things to say, but they had important challenges for us, too: why does North America encourage consumerism and credit card debt? Why can teenagers learn to drive before they can legally drink? Why does Sarnia have such a drug problem? Why aren’t there more employment opportunities locally? Their questions were an important reminder about the value of new perspectives.

Thank you to Khaled Nigim (a faculty member here at Lambton and a member of the Centre for Social Justice), who facilitated the conversation, and to Ruth Drewitt (a faculty member and Organizer of the Intercultural Awareness Award), who recruited the student volunteers. Thanks to those who came out to listen and to learn, and above all, thanks to the students! We learned a lot from your comments, and we’ll do our best to keep listening.


ps: Our famous Lambton profile team, Lois and Bisi, were in attendance: check back soon for pictures! 

Friday 7 November 2014

Unleash the Stress!


Today marks the end of a very successful Unleash the Stress Week here at Lambton College. Organized by our college’s branch of the JACK Project, Unleash the Stress Week gives students a chance to recognize the effects of stress on mental health. 

Faculty lead Charlene Mahon and her team of dedicated students in blue shirts work hard throughout the year to remind all of us—faculty, staff, students, and community members—that it’s important to talk about mental health, since it’s something that affects us all.




Yesterday, many of us braved the rain to take part in the Second Annual Walk For Mental Health.

If you’d like to learn more about the important work of the JACK project here at Lambton and beyond, check out www.jack.org.

Monday 3 November 2014

Global Citizenship Summit

You should definitely plan to attend Lambton College’s 2015 Global Citizenship Summit.

The Lambton Inn Residence and Event Centre was packed this past Wednesday for the inaugural Global Citizenship Summit, which completely sold out. The event showcased food, music, dance, cultural traditions, and information from many different cultures, and it was a wonderful chance to celebrate the diversity that Lambton College is so lucky to have.

Each guest received a passport, which we were encouraged to fill with travel stamps from the various different countries’ and cultures’ displays around the perimeter of the space. The students at these tables were knowledgeable and passionate about their cultures, and they shared stories, photographs, and information. The young women at the Brazil table had coffee samples for us to smell, and they told us about how their families brewed coffee back home. The men from Nigeria explained that dress differs by region across their country, and so does music: in the east, talking drums help send messages for those who can decode them. At a table devoted to First Nations traditions, Summer, a young woman who has been elected to serve as a role model for her community, told us about some of the traditional instruments her culture shares. Each table offered a brief introduction to a culture and a chance to ask questions and engage.

Dinner was delicious: we sampled food from Sitara (Indian food), Giresi’s (Italian), Personal Touch (Thai), Victory Buffet (Chinese), Chow Ciao (American), and Chartwells (Canadian).

The evening began with a performance and traditional dance by White-lightning Clark, the 2014 President of the Aboriginal Students’ Council, and Breanne Stonefish, from Moraviantown. Breanne was performing a dance called the Women’s Fancy Shawl, and White-lightning danced the men’s grass, which represents the long flowing grass of the prairies in the wind. (Thanks to White-lightning for this background information!)

We then heard speakers who shared perspectives on cultural connections and transitions. My favourite event of the evening was the closing International Round Table. Ruth Dewitt asked three Lambton students—Vidya, from India; Sophie, from China; and Uzo, from Nigeria—to share their experiences of life in Canada so far. Their stories had us all laughing at moments (Vidya’s favourite thing about Canada is Niagara Falls, and Uzo found her first Canadian winter so cold that she thought to herself, “I will die”), but they left us with something to think about, too. When asked what her biggest frustration with Canada is so far, Sophie mentioned the slang: she can’t always understand her professors and classmates when they use idiomatic expressions. And while all three women said they appreciate the warmth and welcome they’ve received from Lambton College and Canadians more generally, Uzo told the audience a different story: she had spoken with a domestic student at length one day, and thought they’d made a real connection, but found that the next day the student didn’t seem to remember their conversation and passed by without even smiling. Vidya said that Lambton students are warm, but that it’s always the international student who must initiate conversation, since domestic students never approach her.

Events like this are important for reminding all of us how much richer our community is for these students’ presence and participation. Wendy Asher closed the night by reminding us that this isn’t the end: instead, it’s just the beginning of an important conversation. That’s how I’m going to think of it: this is the first moment in an ongoing connection with our international students, who encourage us to see our community more broadly and celebrate the diversity we find there.



Tuesday 28 October 2014

Stand Up Against Poverty

On October 12, 2014, I stood in the sunshine outside of Sarnia’s city hall to join many other members of the Lambton College and broader community in the Stand up Against Poverty Rally.

The event is held in conjunction with the United Nation's International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, which falls this year on October 17. 

On the front steps of city hall, we listened to local experts outline the story of poverty in Ontario. Their statistics surprised me: one in eight Canadian families worries about finding enough food. More than 900,000 Canadians depend on local food banks each month. A third of the Canadians who rely on a food bank are children (see chewonthis.ca). We also heard from Renee Flynn, a Leader with the Circles program, and Myles Vanni, Executive Director of Sarnia’s Inn of the Good Shepherd, about the costs of poverty on individual families. 

Despite these overwhelming statistics, I left the rally feeling like there is hope for change. As the speakers shared stories and statistics, Lambton College students from the Social Service Worker program waved their protest signs at passing motorists. Their signs said things like

“Don't be foolish, don't be crazy—lack of money doesn't make them lazy.”

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.” -Gandhi

“You can't eat sympathy.”

The honks of support often drowned out the speakers. Of course, there were likely motorists who were unaware of the details of what they were honking for, just as there may have been folks who wandered in to the rally without knowing what it was about. But that’s okay—there were others who left city hall that day with a better understanding of the price of poverty in our community.

If you want to tell the federal government that you'd like to see a Federal Poverty Reduction Plan—and substantial and lasting change for the Canadian families living in poverty—visit ChewOnThis.ca and sign the petition you'll find there.


-Erica Kelly, Project Lead, Centre for Social Justice

Every Child Matters


 You might have noticed more orange than usual around the hallways of Lambton recently. Tuesday, September 30, 2014 was the second annual Orange Shirt Day, a day intended to commemorate the harmful legacy of Indian Residential Schools in Canada. Many members of the Lambton community dressed in orange to show their support for survivors of Canada’s residential school system.

Indian Residential Schools, which separated children from their families and culture, had a devastating effect on Canada’s aboriginal children. Many children in the system were victims of abuse, and the memories survivors share are often horrific. You can learn more about this aspect of Canadian history and recent attempts at reconciliation at the Indigenous Foundations website, hosted by UBC.

The choice to wear orange comes from the story of one survivor, Phyllis, whose grandmother bought her a new shirt to attend her first day of residential school. Here's what Phyllis says about that day: "I remember going to Robinson’s store and picking out a shiny orange shirt.  It had string laced up in front, and was so bright and exciting – just like I felt to be going to school!  When I got to the Mission, they stripped me, and took away my clothes, including the orange shirt!   I never saw it again.  I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t give it back to me, it was mine! The color orange has always reminded me of that and how my feelings didn’t matter, how no one cared and how I felt like I was worth nothing.  All of us little children were crying and no one cared." (Read Phyllis’s full story here.)  

Showing your support to the survivors couldn't be much easier. And it's an interesting form of commemoration, since it's not immediately apparent whether someone is wearing orange because she supports the campaign or because she likes orange. But a whole room full of orange—or hallways full, or a college full—would be a really powerful demonstration. 

I didn't have an orange shirt, so I had to borrow one from a friend. Several people commented throughout the day on my shirt—not people who were interested in the campaign, but people who just liked the fancy shirt I wore. Each time, I was in a bit of a hurry, and I was tempted to say just "thanks" and move along, but I forced myself to slow down and to say why I was wearing orange. And that, I think, is the real benefit of Orange Shirt Day: it's a day that reminds us that we can't skirt around this history because it's difficult. We must learn about it, and we must take the time to speak about it and ask questions. 

Here are some of the SSW students and faculty showing off their orange!


I'm now reading Edmund Metatawabin's Up Ghost River, an autobiographical account of the legacy of residential school. I'm finding it very difficult to read. I've read about residential schools in the past, but now that I'm a mother, I can't read these stories of terrified children being stolen away from their families without thinking of my own kids. But again, the fact that I'm responding to these recountings and finding them difficult doesn't seem like a reason to turn away—and reading the history and feeling sad isn't enough, either.

Metatawabin visited Sarnia in late September to read from his book. At the end of question period, a young white woman stood up in the back of the room. "What can I do?" she asked. She'd clearly read Metatawabin's story—one that represents so many others like his, one that's full of the memories of suffering and horrific abuse at residential school—and she was left feeling guilty, and angry, and ashamed, and frustrated. Metatawabin said she should keep reading, and she should tell her friends what she'd read. Keep reading and asking questions.

For more information on Orange Shirt Day, please visit Every Child Matters.


-Erica Kelly, Project Lead, Centre for Social Justice

Monday 27 October 2014

Welcome to our new blog!

Welcome to our new blog! We are the members of Lambton College's Centre for Social Justice, and in this space, we hope to share with you some of the many events taking place in and around the college.

What is social justice?

Our group spends a lot of time thinking and talking about this question, because it's complicated and important. Definitions matter: what we understand social justice to be shapes what actions we take to bring it about.

Broadly speaking, a just society is an equitable one: it’s a place where every citizen has a fair share of resources and the chance to be heard.

We’ve defined five key values that help us understand what social justice means to us. We value
  • social connectedness
  • equitable environments
  • community partners
  • equitable practice
  • and experiential learning
We’re working all the time to enhance these elements of Lambton’s community, and we’d love your help.

Who are we?

Our Advisory Committee is made up of students, staff, and faculty at Lambton College, as well as interested community members. We meet once each term or so to check in about our ongoing work and to plan for what's next.

I'm Erica Kelly, an English Professor here at the college and the Project Lead at the Centre for Social Justice, and I'll be the one writing most of these posts. I'm always happy to ask questions or hear ideas or comments about our work, so please feel free to email.



What do we do?

Our mission is to “create environments to advocate, connect and participate; to nourish equitable systems and relationships on campus and in our community.”

For us, this means encouraging connections among community members whenever we can.
Our students participate in many activities that could be understood as acts of social justice.

This semester, we’ve organized a series of fall "lunch-and-learns." We're calling them "Community Conversations" because the idea behind them is to encourage connections between members of our community and to celebrate some of the wonderful diversity at Lambton. These lunches are co-facilitated by students who share with us their own experiences.

So far, we’ve held two lunchtime conversations: our first featured Sarah, a student who identifies as transgendered and who shared the story of her journey with us; our second featured a panel of CICE students—Brooke, Tiffany, Cody, Kylee, and Vanessa—who told us about what Lambton’s Community Integration through Cooperative Education program has meant for them. For our November lunch, we're teaming up with Ruth Drewitt, a Lambton professor who organizes LINC’s Intercultural Award, to host a panel of international students, each of whom will tell us about what life at Lambton has been like so far. The series will continue in to the winter months, so stay tuned for what's next.

What else do we do?

We try our best to support any social justice activities and initiatives that we see others organizing around our community. From the “Stand Up Against Poverty” rally, organized by the
Sarnia Lambton Poverty Reduction Network, to Wear Orange day, an annual day to draw awareness to the legacy of Canadian residential schools, to the upcoming Global Diversity Summit: we try to spread the word about these events and offer whatever help we can.

How can you get involved?

We're a diverse group, and we have a lot of projects on the go, often all at once. We always need more people! If you'd like to meet more folks around the college and the community while volunteering your time to work for positive change, please join us! Send an email (you can reach me at erica.kelly@lambtoncollege.ca) or stop by (I'm on the college campus in E202-7).

Thanks!

Do you have an issue you're passionate about? Do you have an idea for how the Lambton College community might change things for the better? If so, please let us know. Leave a comment here or send me an email.

-Erica Kelly, Project Lead, Centre for Social Justice