September Student Profile: Sharing the Voices of Victims with Kaylee Perez
This is the fifth installment of a monthly feature on the PACS website. This monthly profile of PACS and MPACS students will give a small snapshot into the pursuits and experiences of our students.
Kaylee Perez, currently an MPACS student at Conrad Grebel, has always been interested in cross-cultural interactions and global issues. Following high school, Kaylee took a year off to attend a Servant Leadership Institute, which led her to major in Global studies at Wilfred Laurier University. During her undergrad, she completed an international and a local field placement, first interning for 3 months at a refugee centre in South Africa and then returning to volunteer with the Mennonite Coalition for Refugee Support, where she now works as a case worker.
Conrad Grebel University College will confer its first honorary doctorate to John Paul Lederach at its Convocation ceremony on April 13, 2014.
On a balmy Sunday morning in Georgia, a large crowd of people slowly walk in a circle holding crosses, each with a unique name. When the name is called, the cross is raised and the bearer declares “presente!” These crosses are placed one by one in the fence, creating an impactful memorial. Name after name is called as the vigil continues and the people march on.
For Rachel, the past year involved many new crazy and stretching cultural experiences. Even just taking public transportation every day became a funny anecdote, between being squished into a minibus like sardines, being pecked by a chicken the entire way home from work, creating a make shift window out of an umbrella to protect passengers from getting wet during a monsoon, and not being entirely sure if the bus was dropping her off at the right destination. These are just some of the crazy things that can happen on a PACS field study.