During my time in university, I have witnessed too many undergraduate and graduate students in Canada struggling to pay their bills while studying. Affordability in Canada has been worsening over the years and existing financial support in universities is not keeping up with the costs of living. When I saw one student starving because they didn’t have enough money to buy food and pay their rent, I had enough.
In 2020, I launched the Emily S. Acheson Student Support Fund in Geography at the University of British Columbia. For five years, this initiative ensured one student per year received $500 directly from the fund. Each student had to meet the requirements of the fund, including the need to use GIS or cartography as part of their (under)graduate studies. The money could be used in any way, without pressure to apply funds to research-specific activities.
Between 2020 and 2025, five students in the UBC Geography department received this fund. I hope this money helped ease some of the pressure these students faced in undergrad and grad school. But $500 a year was not enough, and I decided to divert the funds to a larger foundation to reach more students across Canada.
I have now created the E.S. Acheson Graduates Giving Back Scholarship Program with the Windsor-Essex Community Foundation (WECF). The program consists of five scholarship categories that target underrepresented students in Canadian academic institutions:
• the Indigenous Student Scholarship
• the Disabilities and Mental Health Scholarship
• the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) Scholarship
• the Women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Scholarship
• the LGBTQ2+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Two-Spirited) Scholarship
The goal of this program is to build a network of mentors and mentees who can help each other navigate graduate school. For each scholarship each year, one graduate student and one undergraduate student from each group will receive a scholarship and be paired as mentor and mentee. A mentor (graduate student) and mentee (undergraduate student) wanting to apply for one of these scholarships need to submit a joint application and must be attending the same university in the year the scholarship will be awarded. Mentors and mentees cannot be related (e.g., siblings, cousins).
Mentors can choose to assist the mentee either in person or online a minimum of once a month. While the mentor is more likely to offer guidance and share issues or challenges they may have faced, it is likely both will benefit from connection with others who may be able to relate to similar issues or experiences.
The E.S. Acheson Graduates Giving Back Scholarship Program is currently accepting donations through an endowment fund managed by the WECF. We need to build the minimum principal investment required to generate enough investment income to kickstart the scholarships. Donations at or over $25.00 are tax-deductible and donors will receive a tax receipt.