SFU students create colouring book to help refugees feel at home

Last January, Renmart Buhay, a student at Simon Fraser Universityjoined students from different faculties in an interdisciplinary program called Health Change Lab, which isaimed at addressing a social or environmental problem in Surrey.

Buhay teamed up with three other students, Alanah Lam, Jordon Fernandez and Adrian Genge, to focus on the social determinants of health for refugees arriving in the city. The students wereinterested in how to create a sense of belonging, identity, and well-being for someone entering a new culture.

Theystudents worked with existing refugee resources, refugee hosts, and refugees themselves to gain knowledge about theexperience. Finally, they came up with the idea of creating a colouring book to help refugees.

"A colouring book was definitely not the first thing that came to mind," says Lam, "[At first,] everybody was looking for more high tech and more complicated solutions to these problems."

But eventually they concludedthe resource had to be accessible regardless of the person's access to technology.

The students noteda colouring book would be a fun and accessible medium to provide information. It was also an opportunity to include refugee representation inthe story.

The story, written in both English and Arabic, follows threemain characters. Two are young Syrian refugees, Leila and Amir, who come to Canada in the first scene.

The thirdcharacter is Anna, a Canadian host who shows the children around Surrey.

The story was written by the students using information from interviews with people who had lived experience.

The artwork was created by 14 different students, some from Emily Carr and some from SFU.

After the semester ended, the students continued to work on the book. Theyfinished in Sept. 2019.

On Oct.24, Welcome to Surrey had its official book launch at the Made by SFU Marketplace. The team printed 400 copiesfor distribution.

The students have now distributed all the printed copies to their community partners throughout the city to use as a resourcefor refugees.

Lam, a psychology major, says the project was created to be simpleand sustainable. The books are sold for$10. The students don'tprofit from the book sales. Rather, the$10 goes toward printing two books, one of which will be donated to a family or settlement organization abuy-one-give-one model.

"A team goal was to put something out there that could make some sort of impact and break through the information overload,"says Lam.

"We wanted to create something that is intuitive and fun. Something that makes them feel more connected to and more at home in Surrey."