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Global College offers unique Spring and Summer courses

Sex trafficking, reconciliation, human rights and forced migration explored

The University of Winnipeg’s Global College is offering four unique spring and summer courses that allow students to explore topical human rights issues while earning credits in a condensed time frame.

NEW: Pathways to Reconciliation – A Manitoba Field Course
May 5- June 24, 2016

This course explores reconciliation within the context of Indigenous and other communities in Manitoba and includes both on-campus classes and field components. Students will visit of Altona, historically of Mennonite heritage, and attend traditional initiation ceremonies of the Mineweyweygaan Midewiwin, at Rousseau Rapids.  Midewiwin means “way of the heart” in the Ojibwe language.

“There are many diverse ceremonies that take place in the Midewiwin Lodge.  Following fire-lighting, there is a daily sunrise ceremony. This consists of a tobacco offering, sharing of the sacred pipes, a water offering conducted by the women and sharing some food, usually berries,” said Lorena Sekwan Fontaine, Assistant Professor, Indigenous Governance.

It is anticipated Aboriginal peoples from Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and the United States will be at Rosseau Rapids. This course includes participation in a major national conference, Pathways to Reconciliation, hosted at UWinnipeg from June 15-18, 2016.

Instructors: Dean Peachey, Global College and Lorena Sekwan Fontaine, Indigenous Studies

NEW: Practitioner Perspectives on Forced Migration: Roots, Causes and Intersectionality
May 9-14, 2016

This course analyzes the complicated relationships between identity and forced migration, in terms of both the causes of forced migration, and how refugees are perceived and treated in Canada. The course will analyze government responses, such as removal, prosecution, rejection, protection, or integration, as well as community responses, including advocacy efforts. The course is offered in conjunction with the 9th annual Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies conference, which takes place from May 11-14 at Menno Simmons College, UWinnipeg.  Conference participation will be a portion of the course.
Instructor: Francisco Rico-Martinez.

Arriving in Canada as a refugee nearly 25 years ago, Francisco Rico-Martinez has dedicated his life to support diverse migrant populations. He is currently the co-director of FCJ Refugee Centre, a grassroots organization that strives to meet the diverse needs of uprooted people, particularly refugee claimants and people without status. In addition, he is a part-time professor at Seneca College and a member of the Editorial Group of the Refugee Update Newsletter.

Francisco was both the co-chair of the inland protection group of the Canadian Council for Refugees as well as the past president. He was also the Toronto regional representative on the Board of Directors for the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants.

Francisco is the recipient of the Community Leadership in Justice Fellowship of the Ontario Law Foundation for 2007, as well as the 2001 City of Toronto William P. Hubbard Race Relations Award and the YMCA Peace Medallion in 2006. In June 2013 he received the Pioneers for Change Award as a recognition of all the contributions he made in the areas of Literacy and Access to Information for different communities. Francisco has a long history of refugee advocacy and volunteer activity on behalf of victims of human rights violations. Currently, Francisco is profiled as a human rights advocate from Central America in the Immigration Section of Canadian Human Rights Museum.

Trafficking in Persons: Local to Global Dimension (In-Class and Online)
June 3-12, 2016

The course explores the inter-connections between prostitution and human trafficking, and assesses judicial, state, and non-state responses to human trafficking over the past 40 years. This course looks at victim protection initiatives, and the implementation of human trafficking prevention and reduction strategies in Manitoba, Canada, and internationally.
Instructor: Gunilla Ekberg, a Swedish-Canadian expert on the human rights of women and girls, at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, with assistance from Marilou McPhedran, Director of the Institute for International Women’s Rights, Global College.

Emerging Issues in Human Rights
August 2-12, 2016 daily (except August 7)

This intensive jump start course is designed to introduce students, in a range of disciplines and students entering university, to challenges and opportunities in global to local human rights, by cultivating foundational skills for academic success. In both classroom and community settings, students explore global issues using the city as our human rights ‘campus’ through current news items, literature, and social analysis from diverse perspectives, shaped by research expertise in Global College. Instructor: Marilou McPhedran (requires permission of the instructor)

MEDIA CONTACT
Diane Poulin, Senior Communications Specialist, The University of Winnipeg
P: 204.988.7135, E: d.poulin@uwinnipeg.ca