Christina Franklin
Trent-in-Ghana Participant 2008-2009
My story begins while I was in Thailand when the Indian Ocean Tsunami happened December 26, 2004. This event changed my life, as it did for many others. It was when I stayed in a refugee camp and participated in recovery efforts that I realized I knew what I wanted to do with my life, but was not quite sure how to get there. I wanted to be a disaster and emergency manager, to mitigate and prepare, respond and recover for events such as this.
Upon returning to Canada I looked for programs that could help me get to where I wanted to be and I came across a few universities offering Bachelors in International Development Studies (IDS). Trent stood out to me as having the best program, not just from looking at the courses offered and distinguished professors, but what sold me were the year abroad programs to Ecuador and Ghana. That summer I packed my car with as much as I could stuff in it and drove for 5 days from Western Canada to Peterborough.
The three years that followed were some of the most challenging, rewarding, and enjoyable years of my life. By taking courses during the summer I was able to graduate in three years, one of those years being in Ghana. Trent had a vibrant and active student body, many activities and committees in which I participated. The professors encouraged the students to get involved, to take opportunities as they presented themselves to us and to get engaged. Although there were many prestigious speakers that came to campus including the President of Guyana and Daniel Ellis, a former CIA agent, the one I found most inspiring was Romeo Dallaire. His call to students was to get engaged, to fight for something they believed in, to take a leadership role, to take risks, and to always remember that humanity is a responsibility beyond nation-state borders. His conviction, his compassion and his ability to motivate students were also attributes I found in the IDS professors as well. They pushed me to think outside of my box and were, and still are, there for support and guidance.
My year in Ghana was one of the most defining points in my life. Although I had traveled extensively before, Ghana was a completely different experience. Initially, I experienced quite a number of challenges that pushed me far beyond my comfort zone. But by the halfway point I was having the time of my life. The NGO I worked with was Ghanaian-run, called Hope for Future Generations (HFFG) and it focused on health and equal opportunities for women and children. It was in my placement that I traveled to 32 communities on a regular basis by motorbike (which often broke down) providing education on general health topics and monitoring on-going construction projects, such as building latrines. The 21 other students I traveled with throughout Ghana and other parts of West Africa are still some of my closest and best friends. For anyone who has traveled with other people, you realize how special that bond is and no matter where you go in life those experiences and special moments will always be shared with them.
Going in to my final year of studies was bittersweet, since it was the most fun yet also was time to graduate and move on. All of my friends from the Trent-in-Ghana program (for those who attended Trent) all lived within about a 5 block radius of each other, which made it easy to swing by for a drink, a study session or a game of pool only 5 blocks further. It was also during this final year in Paul Kellogg’s class that the Haiti Earthquake happened, and the discussion that ensued reaffirmed my desire to go into the disaster management field.
Since graduating Trent I received my Masters at York University in Disaster and Emergency Management (DEM), received my Associate Business Continuity Professional designation and now work for an international company managing the Crisis Management program. Many of the disasters we see these days are man-made, even if they are ‘natural’ disasters such as tsunamis or earthquakes; a disaster has social, political, environmental, and economical effects. Trent’s IDS has given me a strong foundation of understanding how and why certain things are the way they are in the world, and has offered me the means by which I can think critically about the effects certain disasters have on specific countries or communities.
DEM in Canada is a small but fast-growing field. This is a very exciting time to be in this profession and in the coming years, as the importance for preparedness and developing resiliency becomes more widely recognized and valued. I have the opportunity right now to work with the current leaders in this industry in Canada, and I hope to become one myself, to take a step forward in shaping what I would like to see this field become. I am confident that the tools and motivation that the IDS program, professors and friends at Trent provided are more than enough for anyone who wants to get engaged and succeed in anything they choose to be passionate about.