The Power of Data and Empathy for Making Social Change
A Maclean’s article, published in 2016, cites research that says that four in ten university students suffer from food insecurity, in part due to the rising cost of tuition. Further, one in three Canadian women under the age of 25 can’t afford menstrual products, suffering from what experts call Period Poverty. The Canadian Food Studies Journal published an article from the University of Manitoba that broke down food insecure students by demographic, demonstrating that 48.5% of those who were considered food insecure self-identified as having “poor-fair” mental health, and 53.9% self-identified as having “poor-fair” physical health. Food insecurity also disproportionately affects Indigenous Canadians and international students.
These statistics are heartbreaking and infuriating and disappointing. Being a student is stressful, even without the added layer of not being able to afford food. And while yes, we do have student food banks on main campus, on our small satellite campus, we didn’t have anything equivalent. I wanted to help change that, so with the support of a very generous professor and a friend with a car, we decided to do something.
A month ago, I started two “resource bins” on the Stratford Campus at the University of Waterloo.The bins aren’t fancy — they’re two heavy-duty Rubbermaid containers with a paper sign taped on the wall above them: “Take what you need, leave what you can!”. One bin has food and the other has household supplies, and students can take anything they need and leave what they can to create a self-sustaining support system. At the end of the term, anything not used would be donated to the Stratford community.
With today being one month since we started, I did an audit of the contents of the bins and set up a survey to see what’s being used. So far, we’ve had a 20% usage rate of the food resources, a 27% usage of health products (which includes toothbrushes, toothpaste, menstrual products, toilet paper…), and a 24% overall usage between the two bins. This data, though just a small piece of the overall story, already feels so powerful — it’s proof that we’re making a meaningful change in the lives of our students, and that we need to do more, where we can, to keep this momentum of change going.
Right now, I’m working on preparing a summary of where we stand after our first month on campus to share with stakeholders in this initiative. I’m hoping this will bring greater awareness to the issue of food insecurity, as well as help to show the enormous potential for change when data and empathy come together to tell a complete story.
