Community stories

Canada’s National Dementia Strategy, the long-awaited blueprint for finding a cure and for reshaping policy, was released last week.

Over the course of their careers, health geographer Denise Cloutier and business professor Brent Mainprize have been deeply engaged with communities—creating better lives for older adults and Indigenous youth across British Columbia. As the 2019 recipients of the Provost’s Engaged Scholar Award, Cloutier and Mainprize’s commitment to healthy aging and Indigenous peoples will be celebrated during Ideafest.

Student teams from UVic’s Gustavson School of Business swept the South Island Prosperity Project's community-improvement Future Innovator Challenge, taking the top three spots of the post-secondary category. The challenge engages young innovators in helping to improve the quality of life for citizens of the region.

When the BC government began opening overdose prevention sites (OPS) across the province two years ago, it was an unprecedented response to the overdose crisis. Unlike supervised consumption sites (SCS), which were subject to lengthy (and often onerous) approval processes, OPS were rolled out quickly and led by community members on the front lines of the public-health emergency.

The dramatic story of a Syrian guitar quartet escaping the ongoing destruction of the Syrian civil war for a year at UVic and a fellowship funded by the Artist Protection Fund offers a remarkable message about the power of music, hope and determination.

The Victoria Foundation released new research on Nov. 27 about the economic and social impact of registered charities in our region. The new study, conducted by three UVic researchers, reveals that the civil society sector generated over $4 billion in economic activity in one year alone.

UVic continues to make a difference in local and global communities with community-engaged initiatives that take place on campus, throughout BC and around the globe. Community-university engagement is a core value at UVic and one of the top six priorities of our new strategic framework.

UVic is this year's host for the fourth annual Building Reconciliation Forum (Nov. 15-16), in partnership with Universities Canada. This year’s theme is Ts’its’u’ watul tseep, meaning to help one another. Free public events include an Indigenous artisans market on Nov. 16 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. in First Peoples House.

Proposed designs for UVic's newest buildings will be on display at campus and community open houses, Nov. 21 and 22. Following a year of consultations, the designs for the two student housing and dining buildings will be open for comment before the project moves to the municipal approval stage.

As a Métis woman, Brigitte Benning grew up in a tight-knit family with a strong maternal role model who taught her how to advocate for the rights and recognition of Indigenous people. Sociology caught her attention with its diversity of issues on gender, mental health, the environment, Indigenous methodologies, feminist studies and religion.