Community grants for international students

Overview

The Centre for Community Engaged Learning Grants (CCEL) provides funds specifically designated for international students to lead projects in partnership with BC-based community organizations.

There are 2 community grants available to international students at UBC:

If you are an international student applying for one of the grants listed above, simply indicate your status as an international student in the standardized application form found on the respective grant pages. Build on your experience working with community organizations and get creative with what you can do to address a pressing social issue.

Writing a successful grant application

A strong grant application has 3 parts:

A project idea that connects to a broader social or environmental issue with an achievable and measurable impact
A community partnership with clearly outlined roles and responsibilities
A project plan that includes goals, objectives, a timeline, and budget

Identify your project idea

When you apply for a grant, you need to clearly describe your project idea, which includes the problem and solutions you plan to work on.

Review the Identifying a Project Idea guide (pdf) for tips on drafting a problem statement. You can also use the brainstorming matrix in the guide to develop a strong project idea.

Find your community partners

Community partners must be a BC-based registered charity, society, cooperative, non-profit or public sector, community organization, First Nation, school, municipal, federal, or provincial government office.

Partnerships are best built by fostering a relationship with the community organization.

Learn how to build a partnership with a community organization through the Reaching out to a Community Organization guide (pdf).

Build your project plan

Now that you have a project idea and a community partnership, it’s time to write your application.

The CCEL Grant Application Toolkit (pdf) provides a detailed guide for answering each question in the grant application and can support you in developing your project plan.

Seek advising

From developing a project idea to finding a community partner, to building a project plan, the Centre for Community Engaged Learning (CCEL) is available in person or online to support you and answer your questions.

Email community.learning@ubc.ca to book an advising session with CCEL's Grants Advisor to brainstorm your project idea or learn more about the grants available.

Previous international student grant recipients

Amarildo Ceka: EaglesLand Albanian Society of BC

Amarildo works with EaglesLand Albanian Society of BC to promote and empower the underrepresented Albanian community in BC. They will do this by:

Creating informational workshops with a focus on health education/literacy, education, employment opportunities, and settlement information
Launching the AlbMentor mentorship program to help match one youth with a successful mentor and a volunteer with a new resident of BC
Setting up an Albanian Business in the BC directory

Audrey Irvine Broque: West Moberly First Nations

Audrey works with West Moberly First Nations (WMFN) on Dancing with the Land (Nun ke’ Daahwéhsats), a project to advance understanding of how climate change and its policies will impact Indigenous self-determination as well as the cultural values and rights relating to terrestrial and aquatic environments.

They will research climate-action plans and co-creating a research needs assessment for the WMFN. It will lead to a cooperative climate research agenda and a multi-year effort to collaboratively produce climate research and recommendations for WMFN’s environmental planning.

Njamba Koffi: The Inclusion Project Society

Njamba was inspired by his participation in UBC CCEL’s Social Impact Lab to develop an online “Social Impact Initiatives Tracker” for marginalized communities. This wikipedia-style database will provide archival, in-progress, and developing social impact initiatives for interested changemakers to learn about local organizations that reflect their values, make new connections, and take action. They will do this by:

Collaborating with 6 students to research and build a wiki-based website
Consulting at least 10 identified IBPOC communities to input information on 30 different initiatives
Evaluating the feasibility of expanding the project’s scope to all self-identified marginalized populations in British Columbia