This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Equity Enhancement Fund, with goals to spread community involvement in increasing equality, inclusion, diversity and intercultural understanding both inside and outside the UBC community.
In 2015, the fund — which previously totaled about $50,000 — received a significant boost which increased the annual fund. Sara-Jane Finlay, associate vice president of the Equity and Inclusion Fund, said this has helped the fund reach about $75,000 per year.
The fund is open to any student, academic department or administrative unit looking to initiate a project which involves the display of equity, diversity, inclusion and intercultural understanding. However, Finlay mentions that what they are really looking for are “benefits to the representations or the experiences of those people who have been historically disadvantaged within the UBC community.”
The amount of funding given to each recipient is typically up to $25,000 and primarily given to projects that show to be self-sustaining in the long run.
“The people who have been awarded projects in the past have been quite wide-ranging, and there has been some really exciting and innovative work done as well,” said Finlay.
According to Finlay, student proposal writing workshops are offered to guide applicants on developing their idea, giving students “an opportunity to discuss them and work them up into an actual project.” Applicants are also given advice on how to write a proposal and how to fill out the required application forms.
The fund is not strictly limited to the UBC community, and can have impacts outside of the university.
For example, the Stem Cell Club with UBC’s faculty of medicine was funded for building their database of possible donor groups that are often underrepresented in that kind of research.
“They were driving forward in that area in order to try and gather more samples of people who were indigenous [or] from the LGBT community, and so that actually has a broader impact than simply just at UBC.”
The deadline for the annual fund is February 28.