INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT STUDENTS AID CANADIAN FORCES IN THEIR REFUGEE CRISIS EXERCISE
December 19, 2017
For two weekends, students from the International Development postgraduate program lived on Trenton Base, assisting with a large readiness exercise for Canadian Forces members across Ontario. This exercise - which lasted 6 days - involved ID students and Canadian Forces members role playing a refugee crisis scenario. Humber students played a variety of roles during the 6-day educational exercise such as international aid workers, UN employees, refugees and general civil society, while the military members played themselves.
The students were asked to participate in the exercise by Lt. Col. Allan Best, an alumnus of Humber’s International Development Management Certificate program as well as a frequent guest speaker at Humber. In the evening, Lt. Col. Best and the military members received feedback about the day's events from ID students, which everyone present found very rich and informative. Initially, the military was only looking for bodies to play roles; however, after this experience, they are keen to formalize the partnership such that this happens once a year.
The Humber ID students were able to learn valuable skills through this unique opportunity, such as problem-solving, thinking under pressure and teamwork. They were able to see first-hand how international military actors respond to humanitarian situations, as well as their limitations in those scenarios.
Thank you to Lt. Col. Allan Best and the Canadian Forces for inviting our students to take part in this wonderful exercise, and to our International Development students for being dedicated and professional participants.
