Alumni Profiles
CMU alumni guide Canadian newcomers in the search for affordable housing
Posted in Alumni Profiles Monday, April 12, 2021 @ 3:26 PM
CMU alumni Codi Guenther (BA '08, Peace and Conflict Transformation Studies) and River Woods (BA '03, Biblical and Theological Studies) are aiding newcomers to Canada by guiding them in the search for affordable housing.
Having worked as executive director for New Journey Housing for nearly 12 years, Guenther describes the work as broad ranging, involving everything from filing income tax so that newcomers have access to child benefit taxes, GST cheques, and subsidized housing, to teaching workshops on home rental and home purchasing, financing, budgeting, and investing.
CMU alumna wins international writing competition with short story
Posted in Alumni Profiles Wednesday, April 7, 2021 @ 3:36 PM
With only 24 hours to write a short story from concept to completion, some writers might buckle under the pressure. But not Katie Doke Sawatzky (CMU '10). The CMU alumna won NYC Midnight's second annual 250-word Microfiction Challenge, chosen for first place out of more than 5,400 other contestants from around the world.
CMU alumna works for gender equality in practicum turned career
Posted in Alumni Profiles Friday, January 22, 2021 @ 9:48 AM
Ennet Bera hadn't even donned her graduation cap yet when she got her first job in the non-profit sector.
Bera (CMU '19) graduated with a Master of Arts in Peacebuilding and Collaborative Development. She is program assistant for the Fund for Innovation and Transformation (FIT), which operates through the Manitoba Council for International Cooperation in Winnipeg.
CMU alumni and the Crisis & Trauma Resource Institute
Posted in Alumni Profiles Tuesday, January 19, 2021 @ 9:49 AM
Out of the many pockets of opportunities that come from completing a bachelor's degree at CMU, more and more graduates have turned their attention to the Crisis & Trauma Resource Institute (CTRI) situated in the West Broadway neighbourhood of Winnipeg, MB. With many CMU alumni joining the CTRI community and clinical director Vicki Enns' role teaching in CMU's Canadian School of Peacebuilding, the connection between the two institutions runs deep. CTRI, made up of a wide variety of therapists, workshop facilitators, and administrative staff offers training materials and resources focused on keeping the public trauma-informed. Their sibling division, Achieve Centre for Leadership, sets its sights specifically on how workplaces can foster leadership skills, conflict resolutions, management skills, and emotional intelligence.
Perseverance, pilgrimage, and the Bitter Sweet Trail
Posted in Alumni Profiles Thursday, December 17, 2020 @ 10:00 AM
On October 24, 2020, Kenji Dyck (BA '19, Communications and Media) premiered his documentary Bitter Sweet Trail: Japanese Canadians and the Alberta Sugar Beets, which followed a 2019 bus tour through southern Alberta. Produced by David Iwaasa, and in partnership with Nikkei National Museum, the film tells the story of many Japanese sugar beet farmers who experienced internment, dispossession, and detainment through the Second World War. Tour participants, made up of Japanese Canadians who farmed sugar beets in the mid-20th century, visited sites that played a significant role in Japanese Canadian history. For most Japanese Canadians, this was a time of racial persecution as well as a time of persistence. "The tour and the film," Dyck explains, "is to remember not only the injustice but also the perseverance of the Japanese Canadian people."