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Zambia 2012 trip deadline falls soon

Student opportunity to work in Africa this summer

By Dylan Hackett, News Editor

he Global Leadership
| Program’s aid trip to Zambia
is nearing its deadline for
application, with the final date for
submission on January 16.
The program aims to help
the children of the south-central
African country of Zambia.
Students selected for the program
will act as interns for various
involved non-governmental groups
focusing on health, education,
physical education, business and
economic training, and community
development in Zambia. Some of

the students will be placed into
internships with Marie Stopes
International, Youth Anti-AIDS
Network, Camara Africa, YMCA
Zambia, Third World Images
Project, SOS Children’s Village,
FINCA Research Fellow, and Trust
Community School. Internships are
subject to change.
The trip lasts three months,
and successful applicants will take
a pre-departure course providing
background information on
Zambian language and culture,
international development
skills, intercultural effectiveness
and communication skills, and

leadership skills. Once arriving in
Zambia, students will speak with
and receive briefings from many
representatives from aid and charity
groups.
The program will also give students
a crash course on the health and
safety issues of international travel.

Students will have the
opportunity to embark on a two-day
safari to the neighbouring country
of Botswana at its Chobe National
Park as well as the internationally-
renowned tourist destination
Victoria Falls—which claim to be the
world’s largest waterfall.

Basic fees for the program

 

Services aim to aid those
of the Downtown Eastside
By David Hollinshead, Staff Writer

everal programs have been set up to assist
the poor, hungry, and drug addicted people

of what has been deemed Canada’s poorest
neighbourhood, Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

Once a month, Langley resident Jackie
Maclean distributes sandwiches to the needy
through an aid program she has created. Maclean,
a hypnotherapist by profession, has started
a volunteer-run sandwich program, handing
out 500 sandwiches on the corner of Main and
Hastings.

Maclean said that she and the volunteers had
to create a system for making sandwiches in large
quantities, and after the right amount of practice,
are getting pretty good at it. She also claims that
the denizens of the down-and-out neighborhood
are very appreciative and love the free food that
she has been paying for out of her own pocket.

(including airfare, accommodation,
meals, training, and local
transportation) are $3,200, with
the additional requirement of each
student to fundraise $600 for their
trip prior to departure. Additional
expenses, like vaccinations and
medications, are not included in the
program fees.

Like the 2011 trip, students
will blog their experiences online
via the Douglife website and share
their learning and adventures. To
read more of last year’s students’
experiences, visit www.douglife.ca/
zambia-blog. Application forms can
be accessed via the Douglife website.

Atheists deemed untrustworthy: UBC study

Do you

By Dylan Hackett, News Editor

A

atheists

trusted less than other sometimes-demonized
minority groups such as Muslims, Jews, and
gay men.

The UBC study sampled the opinions of
351 Americans and rated their distrust and

disgust
relation

a whole by measure of the two same feelings.
The sample groups contained people of various
ethnic backgrounds and religious groups, but
the perceived lack of trust permeated through
the opinions of most of the religious polled for
the study.

trust the atheist sitting next to you?

Ara Norenzayan in the study preface. “In

subsequent studies, distrust of atheists

ccording to a University of British
Columbia study published in the Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology,

are the least-trusted minority group,

levels towards gay men and atheists in
to their opinion of the population as

“Perhaps
atheists’ denial

generalized even to participants from more
liberal, secular populations. A description

of a criminally untrustworthy individual

was seen as comparably representative of
atheists and rapists but not representative of
Christians, Muslims, Jewish people, feminists,
or homosexuals.”

Researchers were also alarmed by the
suggestion that rapists hold on levels of
perceived trustworthiness in the same range
as atheists—Gervais noted that many of those
questioned would only trust the latter in
lower-responsibility jobs such as waitressing
compared to daycare work.

“Although religions continue to exert great
influence on most human lives, the numbers of
nonreligious people have continually grown,

leading to a great
degree of cultural

“The study confirms lead researcher Will Gervais’

notion that there is mass social prejudice against

those without faith based on a perceived lack of
trustworthiness.’

She started this volunteer group in the memory of
her father, who was an alcoholic, and her brother,
who died at the age of 38 from alcohol abuse. She

of God is seen
as more directly
antithetical to

polarization,”
concludes the
article. “In recent

wants to start handing out water and fruit as well
as the sandwiches, and is calling out for help in
acquiring more funds and volunteers.

Another controversial service targeting
residents of the Downtown Eastside is Vancouver
Coastal Health’s new harm-reduction program—
where distribution centres hand out free, unused
crack pipes.

“There is a huge stigma against people who
use crack, more intense than the stigma for those
who use heroin,” says Walter Cavalieri of the
Canadian Harm Reduction Network, who has
hopes that the program will not only help keep
drug users safe, but also that the interaction with
the social workers will result in some of them
trying rehabilitation.

The 8-month trial program distributes full
crack pipe kits (including glass pipes, filters,
mouthpieces, and cleaning supplies) to users in
an effort to reduce the spread of diseases like HIV
and hepatitis while also getting hard to reach drug
users into interact with health care officials. Prior
to the newly-launched program, officials were
giving drug addicts clean mouthpieces for crack
pipes, but users were still sharing broken and
damaged pipes—promoting the spread of disease.

4

 

religious ingroup
values than

the beliefs and
lifestyles of Muslims and gay men, leading to
more distrust of atheists,” says the study.

The study confirms lead researcher Will
Gervais’ notion that there is mass social
prejudice against those without faith based
on a perceived lack of trustworthiness. He
originally thought of the idea for the study after
reading a 2007 Gallup poll tracking whether
or not Americans would vote for presidents
of different social groups and faiths—or lack
thereof. This study also demonstrated the
likelihood that Americans would be more
likely to vote for a homosexual, female, or
African-American for President than an atheist.
Mormons were at approval levels comparable
to the hypothetical atheist candidate.

“Recent polls indicate that atheists are
among the least liked people in areas with
religious majorities (i.e., in most of the world).
The sociofunctional approach to prejudice,
combined with a cultural evolutionary theory
of religion’s effects on cooperation, suggest
that anti-atheist prejudice is particularly
motivated by distrust,” says UBC co-researcher

years, the topic

of atheism has
broken into public
consciousness, leading to boisterous debate

in popular culture and overshadowing the
tremendous potential that the scientific study of
atheism—and reactions to atheism—may hold
for scientific understanding of the diversity of
prejudice and the psychological, cultural, and
evolutionary underpinnings of religion.”