‘Spring Fun Fair’ celebrates inclusion

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Students got to snack, mingle, and drink hot chocolate around booths set up by the employment and community studies (EACS) program for a “Spring Fun Fair” in the Spruce building atrium at Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Surrey campus on Feb.14. 

The Disabilityverse, a community for KPU students with disabilities and allies, collaborated with the EACS program to host the event which aimed to bring awareness to their program, students with disabilities, and to create a collaborative, safe place for anyone to come and engage with student life on campus. 

“I realized that there is [a] whole department … that not many other students in KPU even know exists,” says Usha Gunatilake, founder of The Disabilityverse and the students with disabilities representative for the Kwantlen Student Association. 

“I wanted to do something that will bring them to the forefront and also give them a chance to engage in university life.” 

The event was a success as they expected to see 60 students but saw around 100 attendees. 

“We had a lot of traffic,” Gunatilake says. “I met students who [said] it was so fun. The ones who were here, they actually spent quite a bit of time here … so I’d say mission accomplished and more.” 

The fair had booths set up by the students from the EACS program to showcase their business ideas as part of a pilot entrepreneur project. Student booths had information about their business, complete with business cards, and many had an activity to share. 

Activities included manga drawing, building Lego, ping-pong, and even mindfulness prompts. 

Sonica Banga is a student in the EACS program who had a table dedicated to mindfulness journaling prompts. Attendees could contribute by writing responses to prompts like, “If you could give your younger self advice, what would you say?” and, “write three things you love about yourself.”

She is creating a journal aimed at healing within relational contexts, including the relationship with oneself. 

“My whole goal is to heal and help people because I’ve been in a really rough place with myself, and I would love to heal people,” Banga says.

The EACS program is designed for students with diverse learning needs that have an impact on educational or employment success. During the program, students engage in hands-on learning, gain work experience opportunities, and engage in the community. 

“Students with disabilities are capable in participating in student life, given the necessary accommodations, which is true to any student. … It’s not that a certain student is lacking, it’s just that the conditions don’t [meet their] circumstances,” Gunatilake says. 

“If someone can set the space up, which is all [we] did, they have amazing ideas and they can be someone who is helping out all the other students and just engaging in [university].” 

The partnership between The Disabilityverse and the EACS program grew organically from Gunatilake’s engagement with the program as part of the marketing for The Disabilityverse. She hopes that events like these can reoccur to continue providing a safe space for conversation around students and people with disabilities. 

“It’s important not to have students with disabilities in one corner, and then the students without disabilities in [another] corner … because when you go out into the world, that’s not how it works. You’re not going to be segregated. And as much as we need a sense of community, we also need a sense of belonging with the world at large,” Gunatilake says. 

“So if people take this idea and make events where there are students with disabilities and students without disabilities … I will go to sleep happy.” 

To connect with The Disabilityverse community at KPU, visit their Instagram page @kpuswd. For more information about the EACS program, go to https://www.kpu.ca/acp/eacs.