Age 23
Young Global Citizen, Works First in Her Own Backyard in Comox
“I am passionate about creating community, whether that means at a neighbourhood or global level. When people here in Canada see inequality, it’s usually through the media and it’s ‘othered.’ You don’t hear people’s stories, and you don’t interact with their lives. But as soon as you speak to someone, hear their story and share your own, you see that we’re all just people, and you become inspired to do something.”
Sarena is an undergraduate student at Simon Fraser University completing a degree in International Studies, Sociology, and Sustainable Community Development. Although she finds herself at a crossroads with her imminent graduation this spring, she’s excited about her new position with CoDevelopment Canada. CoDevelopment is a BC-based non-profit agency that works for social change and global education in the Americas. They believe that partnerships between like-minded organizations in Canada and Latin America can be vehicles for learning, social change, and community empowerment. Sarena is considering an overseas placement, but she’s also strongly committed to working for change in Canada: “Real changes needs to happen at a structural level, at the macro level, at the level of entire systems. In some ways, this is scarier than just focusing on one issue, like fundraising for malaria nets.”
Sarena’s involvement in international development began with the small-scale, “one-issue projects.” At a young age, Sarena helped her father organize a Fair Trade Craft Fair called Fiesta which took place every year in the community. When she was 11 years old, her parents took the whole family on a trip around the world. The family traveled to Europe, Kenya, Uganda, Thailand, Singapore, India, Nepal, and the Cook Islands, often arranging to stay in people’s homes. This experience had a deep impact on Sarena: “Our travels not only opened me up to the amazing beauty and diversity that exists in the world, but I also became aware of the extreme inequality that exists, and this inequality took on a human face through the people we met.”
It was this personal connection with people’s suffering that really pushed Sarena to work towards alleviating some of the poverty she had witnessed. And she emphasizes that it’s not just an altruistic exercise, it’s a responsibility: “Our affluence has contributed to poverty in other regions of the world, and it is a historical debt that needs to be remedied.”
The challenge for Sarena, and for others in this field, is how to inspire all Canadians – and especially young people – to work for change, and how to make accessible the realities in which the majority of people live around the world. How can Canadians get an idea of what this is like without actually leaving the country? Sarena has several suggestions: by talking with people who have lived overseas or grown up in another country, and by using tools such as social media to communicate directly with people in other parts of the world.
Asked if she’s hopeful about the future and about her work, Sarena accedes that it’s easy to get depressed and overwhelmed, especially when events such as the current devastation in Haiti occur. Sharing stories of hope, and knowing that you might have impacted even one person, is what drives Sarena’s work. She also gets inspired by other people who are passionate about international development, and this leaves little room for doubt or discouragement. “I plan on dedicating my career, and much of my free time, to making change.”
