I was privileged in my course of study to undertake a practicum with the Kamloops Sexual Assault Counselling Center (KSACC), a non-for-profit organization that focuses on three major areas: Counselling, Support-women, and providing information to survivors of sexualized violence, including historical childhood sexualized abuse; and survivors of partner assault in local communities. In my journey through this Practicum, such experiences only enhanced my learning relative to human rights and social justice because there was a field engagement with the very issues that I had studied. While my academic work indeed exposed me to several theories and historical movements, it was through the practicum placement that such concepts came alive, allowing me to see more clearly how systemic injustices manifest in real-world settings and how individuals, communities, and organizations actively work at mitigating these challenges.
One of the main takeaways from my Practicum was precisely how linked human rights and social justice concerns are in reality. I dealt with communities experiencing violations of many different rights: access to health care, education, or basic legal needs. The on-the-ground exposure taught me that as one advocate for a single human right, he or she supports many others, confirming the holistic view of justice my classes had impressed upon me. Legal rights, for instance, usually came with the inevitable confrontation against economic inequality, racism, and mental health – all salient parts of my academic understanding.
This Practicum also cemented my thoughts on the place of agency and participation in attempts towards social justice. The theories of Body rights and intersectionality that I studied thus were all too relevant as I saw how community members, especially those marginalized by race or socioeconomic status, were included or excluded from the legal process that touched their lives. It was a concrete articulation of empowerment and inclusiveness when trying to effect justice.My coursework provided the theoretical framework within which I could find practical applications in my practicum placement. Such was the case in learning trauma-informed care and a rights-based approach to service delivery, which helped inform ethical dimensions to work with vulnerable populations. My academic background in the commodification of the female body of color and in gender issues prepared me equally to acknowledge specific challenges faced by particular individuals and communities while entering these issues with a sense of cultural humility and sensitivity.
It made me realize that the greater societal structures, such as systems thinking taught in class, create inequality. Having done much work on the confluences of gender, sexuality, and economy, such as violence that women face in the realm of sex work and entertainment bar sectors in Ho Chi Minh City, I really feel that this realization popped out more while working with my colleagues and other social workers because very often we have to interact with bigger systems, like health and the legal system in particular, to advocate and provide trauma-informed care for our clients who have been victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.
In turn, the experience gained from the Practicum enriched my coursework. It provided me with real-life case studies that I could incorporate into classroom discussions as examples of how theoretical frameworks play out in practice. For example, I had learned about intersectionality in class, but seeing in real life how gender, race, and class affected those with whom I was working added that extra layer of understanding that only real-world experience could provide. The challenges and successes I underwent in Practicum also allowed me to reflect more critically on the theories and frameworks I had studied, observing where they worked and requiring more subtlety.
This practicum placement helped shape my understanding of human rights and social justice, if for no other reason, because it linked academic theory to practical and real-world applications. It validated much of the coursework and created new insights and experiences that could be taken back into study. An interrelationship between theory and practice has dramatically enriched my understanding and engagement with the complex issues of human rights and social justice.