If there’s an opportunity for students to get involved in their communities and make a difference, CityStudio is it.
It’s a program that works with schools in the area as well as the City of London itself to bring students and their efforts into the limelight and to give them an opportunity to work on projects that impact the community.
They recently had a roundtable discussion centered around finding solutions for the student waste problem in London. This is a problem that’s been commonplace for years now and seems to resurface every time students move away from London for the summer.
Misha Schlemmer, the manager of CityStudio London says she’s incredibly proud of how things are going so far.
“Today, I think was a really perfect example of what we’re trying to accomplish with CityStudio. We had a class of 3030 plus students, all focused on this one city staff person’s challenge.”
The city staff person in question is Anne Boyd, London’s Waste Diversion Manager.
“She got a lot of value out of the discussion as well, hearing the students’ ideas, also the background research that they looked into added a lot of value to the project. We bring them out into the city that we’re talking about. And then [we really encourage] their feedback. I was really excited like right from the beginning, the students were putting their hands up to go go to present their ideas,” Schlemmer added.
Agata Piekosz is an instructor at King’s who sat down with the class of more than 30 King’s students to talk about their ideas and share feedback. The first step on the agenda is to secure a place where the students can work and come together.
“I think sustainability is a big issue environmentally and at the community level. I think it will be relevant and important for students to have a space to go to… A space that’s visible, a space where students get together and exchange ideas and information on this topic. So I don’t think it will be a hard pitch, but has to be feasible. It has to be practical and it has to work for multiple people at King’s.”
She also thinks that CityStudio is a great project for these students who largely believe that they need a voice.
Image courtesy of King’s University College
“This is a great opportunity for King’s to make a statement but also for King’s students to branch out into the community and see that the many, many of the things that they think about have community outreach potential. That can help with the neighborhoods and the communities and the people that live in King’s or the surrounding area. And I think people have this sense now, especially in this class, that this is relevant and I can help and I have a platform and I have a voice and people are listening. So I think that’s huge for students.”
Anne Boyd, the city official who was present, explains her reason for being there.
“I helped to formulate the problem, because it’s one that we deal with regularly, but especially at certain times of the year in the spring and the fall when students are moving in or moving out. I have a background in the area, and I know the extent to the problem, and so I’m here as a resource to the class.”
A common concern at the meeting was that the media is putting a blanket over students that labels them all as messy and uncaring. These students want to change that view. They’re dedicated and ready to make a change in their communities, and CityStudio, showing previous success as a project in Vancouver, may well be the chance to make a difference that these students have yearned for.
