International Pride

IP’s mission is to create equity and promote safety as students continue their queer and questioning identity exploration journeys in a space with drastically different cultural norms. IP addresses the gap in resources for international queer and questioning students by promoting safety in its most encompassing forms, including psychological, physical, cultural, legal, and medical safety. These aims align with United Nation’s (UN) sustainable development goals: gender equality, good health and well-being, quality education, reduced inequality, peace justice and strong institutions. In particular, IP strongly resonates with UN’s goals to build community and resilience while fostering equity. 

Currently, our team consists of three UW graduate students and one UW therapist, Dr. Yuxin Sun, who specializes in international student experiences. Our team has met with staff members at the Center for International Relations & Cultural Leadership Exchange (CIRCLE) and Color Mode, the QTBIPOC  discussion group at the Q Center. We believe that these mutually supporting relationships with the other organizations on campus will help sustain our initiative to collaboratively support students in need. At the moment, we have an ongoing support group that is housed under CIRCLE and the executive director, Dr. Felipe Martinez, has assisted us tremendously in starting up and in marketing, spreading the word to all international students on campus. Our support group is a confidential, drop-in space that centers queer, questioning, trans, bi, non-binary, and gender non-conforming international student experiences. This supportive space emphasizes community and connection as we process everything and anything related to culture, nationality, sexuality, and gender. The group meets weekly for a 1.5-hour virtual check-in between the participants, building healing relationships with one another and sharing resources. Currently, Dr. Yuxin Sun facilitates the support group. Her lived experiences as an international student and expertise as a therapist greatly enhance the group members’ comfort and sense of safety. As students are slowly being welcomed into in-person spaces this year, we expect that our support group will also become in-person starting Fall 2021. Our support group will continue quarterly throughout the academic year 2021-2022 at the very least. 

In the future, we aim to be sustainable for years to come and anticipate becoming a student organization by Fall 2021. Two of the UW graduate students on our team are doctoral students and we are committed to this initiative for our graduate careers and look forwards to learning more about meeting the needs of queer and questioning international students. With the Seed Grant, we would be able to sustain ourselves in IP’s initial stages as we continue to make collaborations with other on-campus organizations and reach out to other students. With new collaborations and more students on board, we would be able to support one another and sustain our initiative. For example, CIRCLE helps us greatly with marketing at no cost. In the future, IP is also planning on collaborating with the International Student Services (ISS) to provide webinars and resources to incoming international students. These are all avenues that come at little to no financial cost. For now, the Seed Grant would help IP start up and solidify our presence on campus as we continue to make student safety and support our main priority. 

Finally, details of our budget can be seen in our next response, but in general, the Seed Grant will be used to support IP student staff members and fund educational materials. While for now, Dr. Yuxin Sun is facilitating the support group, we anticipate that the graduate students in IP will be facilitating future support group meetings as well. IP graduate students have lived experiences that align exactly with being queer and questioning international students, and these experiences would help foster a more equitable  support group space. IP believes that our graduate students should be compensated for their time, particularly because these are hours taken away from paid graduate research appointments. In addition, international students have fewer financial aid resources. On the other hand, part of the grant funds will be used towards materials such as flyers and pamphlets to provide education and resources to queer and questioning international students. We plan to leave these materials at the Q Center and ISS.