Tag: UN SDG 16

Teaching Commons seeks presenters for upcoming TiF conference in May

Speaker giving a talk in conference hall at business event. Audience at the conference hall.

By Elaine Smith

With a new vice-provost teaching and learning and an interim director of the Teaching Commons in place, York University’s annual Teaching in Focus (TiF) conference this May will have a slightly different look and feel, and a theme reflective of the times.

Mandy Frake-Mistak, the Teaching Commons’ interim director, and her team are seeking presenters for the two-day conference, which will be held in person this year on May 8 and 9. The theme for this year’s conference is Engaged Teaching in Times of Crisis and proposals are due on Feb. 29.

In addition to crisis-related presentations, there are opportunities for presentations about Academic Innovation Fund projects and experiential education/work-integrated learning. Presenters may speak individually, in teams or as panel members, and all faculty and graduate students are encouraged to consider taking part.

“Based on feedback from the Task Force on the Future of Pedagogy, we know that faculty members want more opportunities to communicate about what they’re doing in the classroom, and TiF will continue to be a great place for that to happen,” says Chloë Brushwood Rose, vice-provost teaching learning. “However, we also want to offer opportunities for conversations around philosophical and critical issues in teaching and learning, not only about practices. We want to highlight people who are thinking in interesting ways and from a range of perspectives about teaching and learning, especially in complex times.”

People are grappling with conflicts in the classroom and conflicts in the world simultaneously, explains Brushwood Rose. The role of the University, she believes, should be to provide a space to talk about pedagogy more broadly.

Frake-Mistak shares that view.

“When we see crisis on a global scale, we can’t help but bring it home, and it shapes how we process information and our dealings with our peers,” she says. “We are trying to support people through this. It’s one thing to share resources, but what about what happens in the classroom?”

And that is where TiF comes in.

The conference will also feature TiF Reads, a panel reminiscent of the popular Canada Reads competition on CBC Radio. Presenters can champion a teaching- or learning-related book, journal article or other resource that inspired them during the past year and attendees will vote for a winner.

“TiF has been a mainstay on our calendar since 2013 and we want to champion it so it is continually growing and getting better,” says Frake-Mistak. “We want to recognize the community who have dedicated their livelihoods to teaching and learning; there are so many unsung heroes. It’s an opportunity to bring people together to champion teaching and learning and propel it forward.”

Brushwood Rose agrees.

“We look forward to TiF being as well attended and energizing as ever.”

Take this opportunity to fill out a presenter’s application form.

Osgoode student lawyers save family from deportation

Statue of justice

With only 11 hours to spare, two student lawyers from Osgoode Hall Law School’s Community & Legal Aid Services Program (CLASP) saved the parents of a York University student from family breakup and deportation to Colombia, where they faced potential danger or even death.

When second-year student Brandon Jeffrey Jang and third-year student Emma Sandri learned on Dec. 18 that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) had ordered the parents of a fellow student to be deported on a Colombia-bound plane on Jan. 18, they worked tirelessly over the winter break to prepare about 1,000 pages of legal submissions to stop it – on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

Osgoode students Brandon Jeffrey Jang (left) and Emma Sandri (right).
Osgoode students Brandon Jeffrey Jang (left) and Emma Sandri (right).

The student’s father became a target of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the early 1990s when he was a candidate for the country’s Liberal Party, actively working to prevent youth from joining the paramilitary organization. After several threats and acts of physical violence, the family fled to the United States. They returned to Colombia seven years later, but remained in danger and fled again, eventually making their way to Canada in 2009. With the Colombian peace process currently faltering and FARC still a viable force, the family believes their safety could still be threatened if they return to their home country.

The couple’s adult son is a student in York’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science and their daughter is set to graduate from Queen’s University and plans to study medicine. The son and daughter, who already have permanent residency status in Canada, faced being separated from their parents as well as possible academic repercussions if the deportation had gone ahead as scheduled.

The CLASP team’s request to save this family from deportation was initially denied by the CBSA, so they filed two supporting applications with the Federal Court, under the supervision of CLASP review counsel Subodh Bharati. On Jan. 17, just one day before the scheduled deportation, they appeared in person before a Federal Court judge in Toronto to make their case for the family – and they succeeded.

The parents – who have become actively involved in their Toronto community, volunteering during the pandemic, for example, to deliver food to house-bound, immune-compromised residents – expressed their gratitude to the CLASP team in an emotional email.

“Thank you very much for all the effort that you put in our case,” the mother wrote. “I don’t have enough words to express what I feel right now and to say thank you. You are the best lawyers that Toronto has.”

Their joy was shared by Jang and Sandri.

“We were just so happy,” said Jang about hearing news of the successful stay application. “We’ve built a close connection with the family and we’ve all worked extremely hard on this case.”

Jang said the experience has confirmed his desire to pursue a career in immigration law – and this summer he will work for Toronto immigration law firm Green and Spiegel LLP.

Sandri said preparing hundreds of pages of court applications in a month was a tremendous challenge, but learning that the family can stay in Canada as a result of their efforts was a huge relief and incredibly rewarding.

“It was difficult, in terms of wanting to put out our best work in such a limited time span,” she explained, “and we really felt the pressure of the fact that these people’s lives were possibly at stake.”

As they waited for the court decision, she added, “we both couldn’t sleep because we were thinking about what’s going to happen to this family and we were really stressing about that.”

In the wake of the court decision, Bharati said, the parents can now obtain work permits while they wait for the Federal Court to hear judicial reviews of previous decisions that rejected their applications for permanent residency status.

With the students’ time at CLASP nearing an end, Jang and Sandri expressed special appreciation for Bharati’s guidance and trust.

“All of our experiences at the clinic leading up to this case prepared us for the uphill battle we confronted when fighting for this family,” said Jang. “The result was a total team effort on everybody’s part and it was all worth it.”

Osgoode leads in applications for third year running

Osgoode Hall Law School

For the third consecutive year, York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School has attracted more applications for its juris doctor (JD) program than any other law school in Ontario – and, according to school administrators, this is no coincidence.

Recently released statistics from the Ontario Law School Application Service, a division of the Ontario University Application Centre in Guelph, Ont., reveal that Osgoode received 2,867 applications in 2023 for its 2024-25 first-year class of 315 students.

Marcos Ramos Jr.
Marcos Ramos Jr.

“I think one powerful thing that our admissions numbers show is that we are highly desired, highly sought after,” said Marcos Ramos Jr., manager of admissions and student financial services at Osgoode.

“But also,” he added, “when you look at our numbers closely, we have one of the most diverse classes of students within Canada, if not the most.”

That impressive diversity, he said, is a reflection of the law school’s long-standing holistic admissions policy – which takes into account more than just grades or Law School Admission Test scores. When considering potential students, Osgoode’s recruiters look beyond strong academic skills to each applicant’s life story and passions.

“Show me the passion,” said Ramos Jr. “Show me how you want to contribute.”

Osgoode also prioritizes a determined effort by recruiters to create Canada’s most diverse law school because, Ramos. Jr said, law students educated in that environment simply become better lawyers.

“Academics are essential,” he noted, “but what makes an excellent lawyer is your social skills. And we’re bringing to students an understanding of different walks of life – be it class, race, or creed.”

In the process, Osgoode hasn’t just created a highly sought after and diverse law school. It’s helping make the legal field – and the world – a better place.

New lecture series to spotlight York’s research leadership

innovation image

York University’s Organized Research Units (ORU) are launching the Big Thinking Lecture Series, which will feature researchers, artists and activists taking up some of the world’s most pressing issues and ideas in their fields, from water research and aging to digital literacy and more.

As a leader in research and innovative thinking, York has a lot to show in the ways its faculty and students are helping right the future with big ideas. The new lecture series, which will consist of various talks and artistic events held throughout the calendar year, will see expert York speakers present research and creative works that span their respective fields, which include muscle health, Indigenous knowledges and languages, youth and aging, Canadian studies, technoscience and society, feminist activism, and Jewish social and political thought.

John Tsotsos
John Tsotsos

“This bold new series will showcase the depth and breadth of research excellence generated by York’s Organized Research Units and their commitment to fostering critical thought and dialogue on today’s global challenges,” said Amir Asif, vice-president research and innovation. “The Big Thinking Lecture Series builds on York’s proud tradition of interdisciplinary scholarship and participatory research. I applaud the ORU directors for bringing this series forward.”

The inaugural lecture of the series, titled “Vision Beyond a Glance,” is presented by the Centre for Vision Research and will feature John Tsotsos, a Distinguished Research Professor in the Lassonde School of Engineering. He will explore the meaning of vision and explain how we effortlessly perform visual tasks many times a day. The in-person event will take place on Jan. 26 from 2 to 3:30 p.m. in 519 Kaneff Tower.

For more details about the inaugural event and the series itself, visit yorku.ca/research/bigthinking.

Osgoode’s Sikh law students create first-of-its-kind national network

Group of Indian friends at the park

Members of the fledgling Osgoode Sikh Students Association (OSSA) – the first group of its kind in Canada – are playing a key role in bringing Sikh law students together. Not just at Osgoode Hall Law School, but across the country.

The rigours and demands of law school can be a challenge under the best of circumstances, but even more so without support. “The feeling of community in law school can make or break a student’s experience,” says Dalraj Singh Gill, co-president of the OSSA, which was launched in the summer of 2022 and aims to improve its members’ law school experience.

Tripat Kaur Sandhu (left) and Dalraj Singh Gill (right), co-presidents of the Osgoode Sikh Students Association, receiving the Osgoode Student Club Award for Community Building.

Third-year Osgoode student and OSSA co-president Tripat Kaur Sandhu and Osgoode graduate Karen Kaur Randhawa, a co-founder of the group, established the group with the hope that the initiative would benefit not only Sikh students at the law school, but the wider Osgoode community, the legal profession at large and Sikh law students across Canada.

Gill – a 2025 candidate in the Juris Doctor/Master of Business Administration program at Osgoode and Shulich – said one way the organization is looking to accomplish that is by helping Sikh students to remain rooted in the central principles of the Sikh faith, including the pursuit of justice and standing against oppression – ideals that are also relevant to the practice of law. 

Members also hope OSSA, through events and activities, can help improve understanding of the Sikh community at Osgoode and provide a platform to advocate for Sikh issues and other racialized and minority communities at the school.

“Our goal, among others,” said Gill, “is to tackle systemic barriers which prevent Sikh students and persons of colour from accessing the legal profession.”

Since establishing OSSA, the co-founders have actively reached out to Sikh law students across Canada, encouraging and supporting their efforts to launch chapters at their own universities. And their outreach has proven successful, with many Sikh Students Association (SSA) chapters popping up across the country throughout 2023 – at the University of Ottawa in January, at Toronto Metropolitan University in February, at the University of Windsor in May, at Thompson Rivers University in the summer and at Queens University in the fall. This year, an SSA chapter is being eyed at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.

Last year, the Osgoode Legal & Literary Society recognized OSSA’s impactful work with its annual Student Club Award for Community Building.

“We are also hoping to get in touch with B.C. law schools,” said Gill, “and then later expand across to law schools in Manitoba and Saskatchewan and at Dalhousie in Nova Scotia.”

Gill added that although the SSA chapters are not affiliated with the Canadian Association of Sikh Lawyers, his group’s goal is to create a Canada-wide network and community that will extend to alumni groups and established legal professionals. A longer-term goal is to eventually host a national conference involving all SSA chapters.

York prof to moderate panel on Black students’ mental health

Two Black students walking inside on York's Keele Campus

Research continues to indicate that anti-Black racism takes a toll on mental health – and academia is not immune to this unfortunate reality. As part of the upcoming Black Student Mental Health Symposium, York University Professor Agnès Berthelot-Raffard will moderate a panel discussion featuring experts from York and beyond speaking about mental health challenges faced by Black students, the racial climate on campus, and equity, diversity and inclusion in the university setting.

Agnès Berthelot-Raffard
Agnès Berthelot-Raffard

Open to all community members, the Feb. 5 event – taking place from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m. in the Founders Assembly Hall on York’s Keele Campus – aims to provide a space to explore strategies and resources to support the mental well-being of Black students, faculty and staff on university campuses.

Berthelot-Raffard, a professor in the School of Health Policy & Management, is the principal investigator of the Promoting Black Students’ Mental Health: A Pan-Canadian Research and Intervention Project on Social Determinants of Health and Equity in Canadian Universities, a project funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada for 2021-24. For this event, she gathered a group of notable York leaders and experts to contribute their diverse knowledge to the panel discussion:

  • Delores Mullings, vice-provost of equity, diversity and inclusion at Memorial University and a professor of social work;
  • Sophie Yohani, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Alberta;
  • Carl James, Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora, a professor at York University, and York’s senior advisor on equity and representation in the Office of the Vice-President of Equity, People and Culture;
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau, instructor and special advisor at the Schulich School of Business; and
  • Yasmine Gray, York University alumna from the Critical Disability Studies program.

For more information and to register for the event, visit the Eventbrite page.

Conference honours legacy of former Osgoode dean Peter Hogg

Public speaker at Business Conference.

Former Osgoode Hall Law School dean Peter Hogg’s seismic contribution to the Canadian legal world will be celebrated on Jan. 10, 2024, as leading legal minds from around the world will gather for a special event titled “His Brilliant Legacy: A Conference in Honour of Peter W. Hogg.”

Peter Hogg
Peter Hogg

The hybrid event will take place online and in-person at Osgoode Professional Development’s downtown Toronto campus at 1 Dundas St. W., Suite 2602. Tickets for in-person attendance are available now.

The conference honouring the former dean, whose impact on constitutional law and legislation in Canada has been described as “immeasurable,” will be attended by four sitting Supreme Court of Canada justices and three sitting judges of the Court of Appeal for Ontario.

Representing the country’s highest court will be Osgoode alum Justice Andromache Karakatsanis (LLB ’80), Justice Sheilah Martin, Justice Nicholas Kasirer and Justice Mahmud Jamal. From the Court of Appeal for Ontario will be Justice Patrick Monahan, a former Osgoode dean; Justice Lorne Sossin, another former Osgoode dean; and Justice James MacPherson. Speakers will also include Trevor Farrow, current Osgoode dean, and Mary Condon, Osgoode dean emerita and professor.

Hogg died at the age of 80 in February 2020. Among his achievements, he was credited for having the most academic citations in Supreme Court jurisprudence of any living scholar during his lifetime. He authored several books, including his authoritative volume Constitutional Law of Canada (Thomson Carswell, 2007), which remains the single most-cited book in decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada. In 2004, he was a key figure in the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage in Canada.

Hogg was appointed a professor of Law at Osgoode Hall Law School in 1970 and became dean in 1998, serving until 2003, when he joined the Toronto law firm Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP as a scholar in residence.

“Peter Hogg was the leading constitutional scholar of his generation, one of Osgoode’s most beloved professors, an outstanding dean, and a kind and generous human being,” said Justice Monahan, who is serving as a co-chair of the event.

“Because he passed away just at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have not been able to honour and recognize his unique contributions until now,” he added. “This conference will bring together outstanding academics, judges and lawyers from across Canada and abroad, all of whom share an admiration for Peter’s incredibly important legacy.”

Serving as honorary Chair of the conference is Harry W. Arthurs, York University president emeritus and Osgoode dean and professor emeritus. The remaining co-chairs will be Osgoode Professor Emerita Jamie Cameron and Osgoode Professor Sonia Lawrence.

“The conference is an important moment for Osgoode and the legal community across Canada to celebrate Peter’s brilliant legacy,” said Cameron. “The highlight of the program is a panel of Supreme Court judges, including justices Karakatsanis, Kasirer, Martin and Jamal, who will share their own reflections on Peter’s legacy.”

All of the speakers are experts from practice and academia who knew Hogg as a contemporary, who worked with him as their lawyer or who entered a field in which he was already a “quiet celebrity,” said Lawrence. “They’ll explore the significance of his scholarship and advocacy over his long and illustrious career.”

Those contributions will remain for many years after his passing, she added.

“Peter’s legacy is alive in the classroom every time we teach his work, when we teach the cases that he was quoted in and when we think about what it means to be a law teacher,” she explained. “I’m grateful that we have this dedicated time to consider his immense scholarly output and the legal questions and challenges he left us with.”  

For more information or to register for the event, visit the Eventbrite page. Learn more about Hogg’s career and contributions in this YFile story.

Osgoode dean to speak at international access-to-justice conference

The statue of justice

In the midst of a global access-to-justice crisis, Osgoode Hall Law School Dean Trevor Farrow will join other international research leaders in the field at a conference on Dec. 6 to discuss the creation of a global research action plan aimed at making legal services more available to those least able to afford their spiralling costs.

Trevor Farrow
Trevor Farrow

The conference, titled “Building Evidence for People-Centred Access to Justice: Envisioning a Shared Research Agenda,” will take place in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. It is sponsored by the Justice Data Observatory, a partnership involving the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, the American Bar Foundation and the International Development Research Centre.

“I am excited and honoured to be collaborating with some of the world’s leading access-to-justice research experts and policymakers,” said Farrow. “We will explore challenging aspects of the growing global access-to-justice crisis, as well as potential data-based solutions.

“While it’s a busy time of term and there’s a lot going on,” he added, “this will also be a very important opportunity for me, as dean, to champion and promote some of the great work that we’re doing here at Osgoode, as well as the major efforts that York University is making to address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

Access to justice for all is part of SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.

Participants at the event will explore opportunities for researchers, civil society actors, government representatives and policymakers around the world to identify and address gaps in justice data and evidence with the aim of collectively advancing a shared access-to-justice research agenda through the Justice Data Observatory.

The conference’s centrepiece panel discussion will follow a global report on access-to-justice research and data and will focus on the topic of “advancing people-centred access to justice through evidence-based policymaking.”

Alongside Farrow, guests on the panel will include: Daniela Barba, director of access-to-justice for the Washington, D.C.-based World Justice Project; Daniel Ricardo Cortes, director of the Justice, Security and Defense Directorate in Colombia; Maaike de Langen, a senior Fellow at New York University; and Qudsiya Naqui, senior counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office for Access to Justice.

Beyond his role as dean of Osgoode, Farrow is also Chair of the Osgoode-based Canadian Forum on Civil Justice, a research and policy expert for the OECD’s access to justice advisory committee, and a steering committee member for Canada’s Action Committee on Access to Justice in Civil and Family Matters, which was founded by former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Beverley McLachlin.

It is expected that, with the OECD, World Bank and other partners, further access-to-justice research and reporting will follow from these discussions and initiatives.

Criminalizing coercive control may do more harm than good, says prof

court judge

Creating a Criminal Code of Canada offence that specifically sanctions coercive control in cases of intimate partner violence would do little to protect women and children and may do more harm than good, said Osgoode Hall Law School Professor Janet Mosher in a recent submission to the federal Department of Justice.

Janet Mosher
Janet Mosher

Bill C-332, a private member’s bill calling for an offence of coercive control to be added to the Criminal Code, is currently awaiting second reading in the House of Commons. It builds on a similar bill put forward by the New Democratic Party two years ago, which died on the order paper.

Mosher and her co-authors, Osgoode PhD student Shushanna Harris, University of Calgary law Professor Jennifer Koshan and University of Saskatchewan law Professor Wanda Wiegers, submitted their paper last month in response to a Justice Canada invitation for comment on the proposed bill.

In intimate relationships, coercive control can take the form of enforced isolation, surveillance, threats, degradation, humiliation, and sometimes physical and sexual violence. It can leave women and children feeling like they’re walking on eggshells, the experience inflicting lasting psychological scars and, in some cases, post-traumatic stress disorder. Elements of coercive control are among the risk factors correlated with lethal violence.

“There’s agreement that coercive control is a serious problem and needs to be understood by all actors in the legal system,” said Mosher.

“But there’s not good evidence that creating more criminal offences or increasing penalties actually works generally to deter this kind of violence,” she added. “And we also know that there are really significant problems in how the criminal justice system currently responds to intimate partner violence.”

A parliamentary committee that investigated the issue in April 2021 recommended the government consider drafting legislation directed at coercive control. In recent years, changes to the federal Divorce Act and Ontario’s Children’s Law Reform Act have redefined family violence to include coercive and controlling behaviour. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has also advocated for new offences specifically targeting coercive control.

But Mosher said evidence from countries such as England, which has had an offence of coercive control since 2015, is that judges, lawyers and police officers have difficulty conceiving of an offence based on a pattern of conduct and often misunderstand what coercive control is.

“It has lots of different components,” she added. “There are many different tactics. And it’s very much not focused on a single incident or a small handful of incidents, but it’s looking at a pattern of conduct over time.

“So in terms of proving it and getting the evidence before a decision maker, it’s pretty complicated,” she explained. “It takes time and it takes resources, in addition to knowledge and understanding.”

The experience in England is telling, she noted: A recent study found that six of seven cases of coercive control were discontinued due to evidentiary challenges.

In their submission to the Department of Justice, Mosher and her co-authors also argue that a specific Criminal Code provision would be ineffective in deterring coercive control because most women who experience intimate partner violence do not contact the police. That’s especially true for Black, Indigenous and queer women.

“Contacting the police has many potential ramifications,” she said. “If you have children, the child welfare authorities will be notified. If you’re a Black woman or an Indigenous woman, you’re much more likely to have your children taken from you. That’s a reason why you might not contact the police.”

Just as concerning, she added, is how many women – more likely marginalized women – are wrongfully charged with domestic violence-related offences because of police misunderstanding or the abusive partners’ manipulation of the legal system. Adding an offence of coercive control opens up even more opportunities for manipulation, said Mosher.

Even if a woman calls the police and it results in a charge, there is little protection that comes from that, she said. “It may make some women and children safer, but it will actually, in our view, make many women and children less safe.”

She said that the March 2023 report of the Nova Scotia Mass Casualty Commission, which conducted a public inquiry into the 2020 shooting of 22 people in and around Portapique, N.S., concluded that strong community-based responses to intimate partner violence that give women safe spaces would be more effective than carceral responses in protecting women and children.

A national action plan released in 2021 by Women’s Shelters Canada provides many solid recommendations on ending violence against women, said Mosher, including providing adequate income, adequate safe housing, and better and early interventions for abusers.

SDGs in Action: from desk research to global citizenship curriculum

tablet united nations sustainability goals unsdgs

By Elaine Smith

Although they have now graduated, a team of students who took part in York University’s Go Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Action Student Challenge hope to continue pursuing opportunities to incorporate their community-oriented projects into university extracurriculars.

With funding from the Government of Canada’s outbound student mobility pilot program Global Skills Opportunity, the Student Challenge aims to empower York students and their peers around the world to take action toward achieving the United Nations SDGs with a global lens under the supervision of York International.

Christiane Marie Canillo
Christiane Marie Canillo
Renchillina Supan
Renchillina Supan
Ravichandiranesan Ponnudurai
Ravichandiranesan Ponnudurai

Under the auspices of the challenge, two York students, Christiane Marie Canillo, who earned her bachelor of arts (BA) in psychology, and Ravichandiranesan Ponnudurai, a bachelor of environmental studies graduate, along with two students from the University of the Philippines Diliman – Renchillina Supan, a BA sociology graduate, and Mila Monica Maralit, a master of arts in tourism student – connected to work toward ensuring SDG 4: Quality Education. Now known as the iGoCitizen team, they welcomed a new member in November 2022: Anjali Kumar, a BA in law and society graduate from York University, who also shares motivation to transform conversation into active global citizenship.

In the winter of 2022, the team earned the SDGs in Action Creative Solutions Award for exhibiting a high degree of interdisciplinary thinking to mobilize and engage communities to act on the SDGs. And that was only the beginning.

The iGoCitizen team determined that global citizenship education (GCED) is integral to achieving the SDGs because it teaches action skills for quality education. Their pilot project, based on a discourse analysis, targeted the need to integrate GCED into school curricula as extracurricular activities. This helped them build this program, which organizes and equips teams with global citizenship learnings, design thinking and project management skills that allow them to create socially grounded and concept-based social action plans (SAPs) in their own communities.

“We need a relevant and transformative education that will enable learners to think critically and act toward a more ‘just, peaceful, tolerant and inclusive’ society,” they wrote in their plan.

Starting with Sri Lanka, the team prepared a country-specific curriculum to teach students about social cohesion, peace-building and active citizenship, and challenged them to create SAPs for their own communities.

Creating the curriculum required extensive research, consultations and discussions, and it would have been easy for the iGoCitizen team to hand in their deliverables and walk away at the end of the semester. Instead, they created an opportunity to deliver the curriculum the following fall, piloting it as a five-day hybrid workshop in partnership with VISIONS Global Empowerment Sri Lanka and the University of Jaffna in Sri Lanka.

Ponnudurai was on hand to deliver content live, while the other team members taught and facilitated the online portions of the workshop. The enthusiasm that greeted the workshop made them eager to keep the project alive.

“The participants wanted to model GCED and do projects in real time in Jaffna,” said Ponnudurai. “We all saw their passion. After three decades of the civil war in Sri Lanka, the younger generation wants to make changes to help rebuild their communities. This is so important in order to achieve the SDGs.”

Supan said, “It was great to see our ideas become reality. We met virtually to create this project, and I never thought that our concept notes would lead to social action plans and actual impact on student engagement activities.”

The iGoCitizen team is working on the possible second implementation in Sri Lanka and project contextualization in the Philippines. Anticipated efforts also include iterations to other countries not initially included in their discourse analysis, since there have been inquiries from countries such as Mexico. The team is also finalizing a memorandum of understanding discussion with their non-governmental organization partner, VISIONS Global Empowerment Sri Lanka.

It is challenging, because the team has limited funding and human resources, and members are also managing personal commitments such as work and studies. Nonetheless, all members remain passionate and committed. They hope that another team of students who join the Go Global SDGs in Action Student Challenge will be interested in pursuing the iGoCitizen initiative elsewhere in the world.

“York University’s SDGs in Action project team is in awe of team iGoCitizen. They are a model for anyone who aspires to create change and positive impact in their community(ies),” said Helen Balderama, director of global engagement and partnerships for York International. “With passion, determination and collaborations, the possibilities are endless.”

The 2023-24 SDGs in Action Knowledge Fair (third edition) is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 6 from 9 to 11:30 a.m. Those interested can register to join the conversation and learn about the student groups’ transformative SDGs projects.

For more information about iGoCitizen, contact the team at igocitizen.initiative@gmail.com or instagram.com/igocitizen.