University of Victoria
EN-1: Student Educators Program

The UVic Residence (Res) Green Team is based out of the Sustainability Living Learning Community located in our South Tower Building, and also has several units in Cluster Housing; however, it is open and encouraged to all students living in Residence at UVic. The Res Green Team provides current first year students with access to campus sustainability volunteering opportunities, support to create group initiatives, and monthly meetings to encourage engagement.

Upon obtaining membership students receive training in sustainability so they may go forward during outreach activities to educate and connect with their peers. This training includes:
• information on ongoing sustainability initiatives on campus and various groups that run them
• information on successes and challenges of these initiatives,
• teachings on the state of UVic’s environmental footprint
• critical thinking about how challenges can be overcome and solutions that could make UVic more sustainable

While part of the Res Green Team, students also have the opportunity to build a relationship with the Office of Campus Planning and Sustainability in order to enable students to get a sense of how sustainability is implemented in a large institution. Building this relationship with the University is important for encouraging students to engage in sustainability on campus, as well as increasing positive and meaningful educational outcomes.

Examples of different outreach events run by our Res Green Team include:

- Love-a-Mug week where Green Team members hand out free coffee vouchers to students and staff on campus that are already using re-useable coffee mugs. This promotes waste reduction on campus by eliminating paper cup usage.

- Lighten-up! Where lights are given out to campus cyclists, primarily students, after Daylight Savings. This event serves to promote safe cycling, encouraging students to use their bicycle as a more sustainable mode of transportation even though it gets dark earlier.

- Fair Trade Campus Week where the Green Team helps to educate students and faculty members on what sustainable foods are available at University Food Services, as well as providing free samples, free fair trade coffee, and free fair trade teas.

First year Green Team students also gain exposure to various other sustainability related student groups through events run through our Community Garden, the Community Cabbage, the University of Victoria Sustainability Project and the University of Victoria Sustainability Movement.

The Res Green Team targets all students at UVic during outreach events, but most specifically aims to educate other students in residence (2,472 students).

The UVic Human Rights Education Volunteers (HREV) is a program put out by the Office of Equity and Human Rights. Student volunteers within this program provide educational workshops and resource materials focused on social justice and human rights issues to members of the community. They use a fluid and flexible approach so that volunteers are able to build on their strengths and interests. Students are required to complete 8-9 hours of training in order to become a volunteer. Training includes the HREV orientation workshop; engaging racism workshop or anti-oppression workshop; and the sexualized violence or consent workshop.

The Human Rights Education Volunteers (HREV) bring together UVic staff, students and faculty. The program reports to the Human Rights Education Advisor within the Equity and Human Rights office (EQHR). EQHR is a resource for all UVic community members, providing education, information, assistance and advice in aid of building and supporting an inclusive campus. We believe that our campus should represent the diversity of our larger communities and that every person – student, staff and faculty – should be treated equitably. Therefore the entirety of the UVic campus falls under the target audience of the HREV program.

The SHAPE program runs out of and is supported by UVic Health Services. It offers student volunteers experiential learning that is highly relevant to many health and wellness careers. The program has several different volunteer groups within it, including groups focused on health promotion (Health Promotion Centre), harm reduction (Harm Reduction Centre) and using physical activity to support mental health (FitConnect). Student volunteers receive mentorship from the UVic Health Services staff, and go on to create connections across campus and contribute to student well-being.

Activities of the SHAPE program vary by internal volunteer groups (Health Promotion Centre, Harm Reduction Centre and FitConnect), however they mostly include:

- Planning events and activities
- Developing workshops
- Providing guidance and education
- Connecting students to campus community services

As good health is important for everyone, the SHAPE program targets all UVic students.

Campus Community Garden

The UVic Campus Community Garden is a collaborative effort between students, faculty, and staff, and is affiliated with the UVic Students Society. The Campus Community Garden manages an urban agriculture space on campus along with practical support from Facilities Management and the UVic Office of Campus Planning and Sustainability. Garden plot rentals within the Campus Community Garden are restricted to current UVic students, faculty and staff, although there are also designated communal plots which are open to all.
The Campus Community Garden provides a space where students can engage in topics related to sustainable urban agriculture such as food security, permaculture, composting, organic gardening, native plant propagation, and local organic food production. The Community Garden operates under an organic gardening model whose best practices exclude the use of pesticides and GMO’s, and works to support the ecology of the surrounding area by planting local species and supporting pollinators. The Garden also fosters practices and teachings surrounding food security by designating specific garden plots as “Giving Gardens” in which food plants are grown and all food harvested is given to food banks or to UVic students to promote food accessibility.

Each week the Campus Community Garden engages with both students and community members by holding work parties to maintain the communal areas of the garden. This is where anyone can come to build and share gardening skills, as well as connect with other volunteers. Although volunteers consist largely of UVic students, these work parties encourage students, staff, faculty, and community members to come out and participate. In addition to these weekly work parties, the Community Garden also hosts a wide array of outreach events throughout the year. Examples of different outreach events run by our Campus Community Garden include but are not limited to:
- The Bee Keeping Workshop where student members of the Campus Community Garden help to educate individuals on bees and beekeeping alike. This workshop also promotes the Garden’s own bee hives, and raises awareness of the importance of pollinators.

- The Composting Basics Workshop where the Campus Community Garden helps to educate other student, staff and faculty members on how to successfully produce compost for their garden that is rich in beneficial nutrients, as well as how to choose the best composting system for individual needs.

- The Make Your Own Beeswax Wrap Workshop where the Campus Community Garden teaches attending student, staff, and faculty members on how to make their own beeswax wrap. This workshop promotes sustainable use and re-use of everyday products, and raises awareness of the harm of single-use plastic wrap.


Gender Studies Equity and Outreach Committee

The Equity and Outreach Committee is supported by the Gender Studies department, and is made up of students at UVic that are committed to issues of social justice, two to three of which are student coordinators hired by the Gender Studies department each year. As a members of the Gender Studies Equity and Outreach Committee, student coordinators receive training from the Gender Studies department staff to become “experts” in relating to other students on gender equity while providing training opportunities in a peer-to-peer format. The student coordinators go on to train other students in advocating for and creating awareness of gender equality and rights. The Committee is a feminist, anti-oppressive collective that relies on foundations of inclusivity and seek to reduce marginalization related to class, colonization, ability, age, gender, race, body type and sexuality. The peer-to-peer training opportunities happen through two approaches. First, student coordinators work to increase involvement, equity, diversity and community by organizing and promoting political and social events on campus and in the community. Second, they host a bi-weekly “homework club” where students are able to come and do their homework while having the opportunity to engage with student coordinators on topics of equity. In a peer-to-peer format, the student coordinators are then able to share their knowledge based on their experience and their studies as well as from training received upon becoming coordinators for the committee, thereby educating students in a relaxed conversational setting.

Gender Empowerment Center (GEM)

This center is based out of the Student Union Building at UVic and is a space for self-identified women, non-binary, and gender non-conforming folks to organize, network, access resources, attend events, study, and relax. It is open to both UVic students and community members. They aim to provide a strong, intersectional feminist voice on campus, advocating for social change through political action, education, and support of UVic as well as the community. Students have the opportunity to be employed at the Center through the UVic Work Study Program, or are welcome to volunteer. After training, student employees and volunteers help to conduct peer-to-peer education through hosting or assisting with GEM ongoing workshops that focus on gender diversity and sexual health. They collaborate often with the Office of Equity and Human Rights and the Office of Student Life when planning various events and workshops in a non-threatening student-to-student setting.

Each program was contacted directly and each self-reported their most recent data (within the last year) on number of trained student educators, number of weeks in a year the program is active, and number of hours worked in a week per student educator. If volunteer hours were not formally tracked, the program leader provided a conservative, educated estimate.

All programs that operate out of the UVSS receive monetary support from a set portion of student tuition fees.

Please note that each program outlined in the "all other programs" category vary between weeks in a year they are active and average or expected number of hours worked weekly per student educator. The STARS reporting tool would not allow for entry of these variable numbers, however the total entered accurately reflects the data provided by the student educators programs.


Campus Community Garden: https://www.uvic.ca/sustainability/involved/garden/index.php

Society for Students with a Disability: https://www.uvicssd.com/about-us/

Gender Studies Equity and Outreach: https://www.uvic.ca/humanities/gender/current/student-activities/equity-outreach/index.php

Gender Empowerment Centre: https://genderempowermentcentre.ca/about-gem/