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!

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! 

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.

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.