We are pleased to announce that our annual conference and fundraiser will take place on November 16th.  Our speaker that evening will be Veronica Fynn.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY3AzOFvcU4]

A refugee from the war in Liberia, West Africa, Veronica Fynn is one of Canada’s leading advocates for displaced persons.  She believes that education can transform the lives of vulnerable, affected refugee women like it did for her.  Forced to flee Liberia at age 16, Fynn spent nine years as a refugee in Ghana, where, despite serious trauma, she graduated from the University of Ghana with a degree in zoology and biochemistry. She was then accepted to UBC as part of World University Service of Canada (WUSC).

“Going to school opened so many options to me,” she says.

At UBC, she organized the UBC Africa Awareness Initiative and Conference, with the goal of launching an African Studies program at UBC, which she achieved in 2005.  She has researched the health consequences of human trafficking at the UN, and is now undertaking a PhD in law at York University in Toronto.  Having survived sexual violence herself, Fynn is working toward protecting and assisting vulnerable women and children, especially those affected by violence in Africa.  This has earned her the a UBC Alumni Achievement Award for Global Citizenship in 2010.

 “Humans have the capacity to do so much positive change.”

– Veronica Fynn

More details about the conference will follow on our website.  Stay tuned!