CHANGE: “It only takes one point to change the direction of a line.” 
Name: (KAREN)
JIA-YUN
CAO
Location: TORONTO,
ONTARIO
Email address:
KARENJ.CAO@GMAIL.COM
KARENJ.CAO@UTORONTO.CA
Campus Oxfam Group:
University of Toronto
Intro
Karen grew up in Toronto's poorest neighborhood of
Regent Park; however the negative image that it received was not what she
experienced. The community has had considerable progress to revitalize its
image and help its largely new-immigrant-residents fight for better housing and
social security, there was a vibrant neighbourhood that banded together in
hard times of minimum wage 12-hour a day jobs where 70% of it went to ever
rising rent, and a sense of community that never existed in the suburbs… she
hopes to return there one day. She believes the city is not just for the rich.
She is currently a student at the University of Toronto’s St. George campus, in the
non-dominant and under-funded fields of geography and sociology. Currently,
she is working hard to gain experience in order to defy the “horrors of a B.A. for
employment after graduation” (as one mother put it to us during a high school
outreach event for the geography department). She has worked for U of T’s
Student Food and Clothing Bank, the Sustainability Office, and the Toronto
Undergraduate Geography Society. Since high school Karen has volunteered
for over twenty organizations of every kind (environmental, social, health, etc.) –
lately she has been more politically active and financially supportive to groups
including the Liberal Party, Spread the Net, Toronto Bay Imitative (before it was
taken over by Evergreen), Free the Children, the Green Party of Canada, the
Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) and the Nature Conservancy. She is
not rich, her education is OSAP-funded and the biggest donation she made was
to a political party, she believes you can’t change the world by simply changing
a light bulb.
Coming from an immigrant background and growing up among the poorest of
the poor, Karen never really fit in with people in her school, and considers
university a real privilege, conferences, special speakers, lectures, free
documentary screenings, events etc. and a place to connect and meet
students from literally around the world, intellectuals and leaders like Stephen
Lewis, Naomi Klein, David Suzuki, Michael Ignatieff, and Romeo Dallaire. She
once met Rick Mercer on the sidewalk and annoyed him for a picture, and
found out later that he lives right behind her workplace! Currently, she works for
the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada and occasionally writes
biographies of herself in the third person.
What interested me to become involved with Oxfam
Karen’s interest in social and environmental issues was inspired by her high
school teachers. Although Karen admits she feels she has a hard time
‘connecting’ with the harsh realities facing the people that Oxfam Canada’s
campaigns and efforts help overseas – she is interested in assisting because
Oxfam recognizes that political change at home with our government’s
responsibilities is crucial for widespread change, while individual actions are
critical for that collective action.
The Oxfam campaigns that Karen supports include: the recent Public Service
campaign (especially water), HIV/AIDs and women’s rights, fair trade and food
security as well as the political actions it advocate and the recognition Oxfam
gives towards social justice in order for real action on climate change to take
place, where climate change will hit the poorest the hardest for a problem they
did not create and the wealth they did not experience.
Activities I’ve been involved in with Oxfam
Karen has been involved in: film screenings, outreach events for the Public
Service campaign, potlucks for World AIDS Day, presentations on food security,
marching during International Women’s Day among others.
My most rewarding experiences as an Oxfam member
Karen’s most rewarding experience has been working at her university’s food
bank, there she experience first hand the level of frustration students (mostly
graduate and mature students) are experiencing when trapped in a cycle of
poverty, forced to choose between rent, food, school or family obligations such
as caring for their children or parents. There she learned to really appreciate the
often tedious work that non-profits rely on community members to do for free
through volunteering and there she experienced and learned first hand from
working with the Daily Bread Food Bank (which runs all the food banks) the
growing level of poverty within Toronto where 1 in 3 Torontonians are living in
poverty and the minimum wage hardly provides the minimum when working full
time. And there she experienced first hand the level of bureaucracy and red
tape in advocating for more funding and staff.
What I’ve learned or gained through my involvement with Oxfam
Through Oxfam, the most important thing Karen learned and to some extent
Oxfam’s work helped verify was that you don’t have to travel around the world
to an economically developing country in order to create the change
necessary change unfair policies that perpetuate suffering and unfair treatment.
Government creates the regulations and policies that govern the way resources
are distributed, consumed, transported, and traded – and Karen is happy that
Oxfam works to educate Canadians on the Canadian government’s promises
and responsibilities to the World’s poorest.
Despite experiencing poverty at home, Karen however admits that she has
always been jealous of those that could afford to travel to another country and
help out just so she can have some real experience to speak to for the
international issues she advocates.