Trent University International Development Studies

The rising costs of hydro places a financial burden on low-income households. The Ontario Electricity Support Program (OESP) was launched to help relieve the pressure of these rising costs in Ontario. However, within the City and County of Peterborough there has been low enrollment in the subsidy program, representing a missed opportunity for individuals struggling with energy poverty. The objective of this research project was to identify the barriers that low-income households face when enrolling into the OESP, in order to provide recommendations to improve uptake. Previous literature pertaining to the review of low enrollment in various government subsidies suggests that individuals face barriers, due to the application process, lack of promotion, and the multiple steps required to receive the benefit. Our results indicate that individuals within the City and County of Peterborough experience similar barriers, which have caused the low enrollment into the OESP, and includes recommendations to address the barriers that low-income Ontario households are facing.

The topic of this project is the discipline of university-based community-based research, more specifically within the context of the Trent Community Research Centre. Its purpose is to review the archive of TCRC projects to find those of notable quality that may be highlighted at the TCRC's 25th anniversary conference, and to uncover what trends have developed within TCRC projects over the years. Interviews were conducted with host organizations, Trent faculty, and former TCRC staff. Ongoing archival research in addition to the interviews emphasized specific trends, including sociopolitical, environmental, economic and cultural. Analysis of these trends helps to situate the TCRC within the broader field of community-based research.

This paper explores the divestment from fossil fuels movement, which is a recent socioenvironmental movement aimed at pressuring Canadian universities and colleges to dissolve current investments, stocks, or bonds in the fossil fuel industry. This divestment campaign took place at Trent University from 2012-2015, but was unsuccessful in their lobbying for full fossil fuel divestment. As this is a recent movement at Trent, this paper aims to collect data on how to best survey the level of knowledge and support Trent students have for the divestment campaign. The specific research questions investigated are: What is the best method of collecting data to determine if Trent students support divestment from fossil fuels? What is the best method to engage students with the divestment from fossil fuels movement? The methods used to answer these research questions involved implementing and testing four different types of data collection: online surveys, focus groups, semi-structured interviews, and opportunity sampling. After analyzing all of the data collected, a methodology was developed which will be used by Part II of this project to survey the widest student population possible, and to break into previously untapped student demographics.

On any given winter night in Peterborough, Ontario, there are approximately 120 homeless people on the streets and in the emergency shelters like the Warming Room. The Warming Room, through numerous volunteers, provides meals, a safe place to sleep, comfort and support to its guests. This research addresses the Warming Room's goal of providing the volunteers with a more personal relationship with those who experience homelessness, and thereby giving them a deeper understanding of the depth and complexity of this subject. The Warming Room has approximately 50 overnight volunteers who facilitate overnight shifts and are the only volunteers who engage directly with the guests. We utilize quantitative research in the form of an online survey to which we received 36 responses, and qualitative research through the facilitation of 11 interviews to assess the impact that volunteering at the Warming Room has on volunteers. We found that volunteering at the Warming Room transformed individual's attitudes and opinions regarding homelessness, and that many volunteers desired to engage further, but were unsure how to do so. Through our research, we have made recommendations for the Warming Room to promote civic and political engagement in the form of collaboration, policy involvement and future research that focuses specifically on addressing how the Warming Room can provide opportunities for further engagement.

The Seasoned Spoon is a vegetarian cooperative café at Trent University that sells prepared food to the Trent community and a variety of services to students, staff and community members. Among these services are their nearly 20 workshops and events offered each academic year. The project was a four-month community-based research project to evaluate the workshops and events that the Seasoned Spoon offered for the 2017-2018 academic year.