Students open sex clinic

Kwantlen nursing students held a grand opening for a student initiated health service centre for immigrant women on Dec. 2 in Surrey.

Surrey Mayor Diane Watts spoke of the importance of the clinic and donated $2000, on behalf of the city of Surrey to the project. Abby Wiseman // The Runner

By Abby Wisemen [coodinating editor]

Kwantlen nursing students held a grand opening for a student initiated health service centre for immigrant women on Dec. 2 in Surrey.

Fourth-year nursing students Krista Rohachuck-Smith, Kathryn Hull, Brinne Southcott and Gilian Fantillo worked in conjunction with Progressive Intercultural Community Services Society (PICS), an organization who advocating for the education of individual rights for immigrants. The purpose is to create a confidential and free clinic for immigrant women.

The initiative is part of a nursing course called Health and Professional Growth: Influencing Change. The semester-long course requires students to get involved in the community through nursing.

Students who took the course in the Spring 2010 semester worked on the logistics of the clinic such as location, furniture and funding. The project was picked up by this semester’s nursing students and put into practice.

“We all come from the same background, and we’re all pretty liberated,” said Rohachuck-Smith. “It was really shocking to hear some of the stories of abuse and oppression and to realize that there is such a deficit in knowledge that we just kind of take for granted.”

The four students are getting a first-hand experience of dealing with women who have little to no sexual education and have realized the need for a safe and confidential place for immigrant women to go.

Come January, a new group of nursing students will take over the project, but the four women say that they want to stay connected to the project.
Surrey Mayor Diane Watts was in attendance and donated $2,000.