Want to learn about healthcare? Trinity Western University’s School of Nursing and Gender Studies Institute will be hosting a “café scientifique” event on March 17 with topics about access to healthcare among Aboriginal peoples, new Canadians, and non-Aboriginal peoples born in Canada.

“The concern is that access to healthcare may not be known to certain communities,” said Allyson Jule, moderator of the event and gender studies professor at TWU. Jule also said the event will have a gendered perspective.

The first event, held in January, had many community members present from a wide variety of people including academics from TWU, University of British Columbia, Kwantlen First Nations group and nurses. Jule believes that the conversations at the event have gotten TWU’s name out in the community positively.

For the upcoming event, the attendee list is expected to include the Karen refugee group who wants to talk about health in communities, local representatives from the Fraser Health Authority, and local politicians and the Aboriginal community from Kwantlen University. This is a key way for students or people from the community to speak with health and social scientists.

The initiative for Access to Healthcare evolved from on-campus café talks held by the Gender Studies Institute.

“[The café talks] were such a surprising success that the idea of that connecting place and time was something that was to naturally going to flow into other interest groups like School of Nursing and their research on access to healthcare,” said Jule.“I think it’s a little bit surprising that in a country where the health care is universal, people aren’t accessing the things available to them.”

Access to Healthcare takes place at Thai-restaurant, Ban Chok Dee, in Langley from 4 to 6pm. “The students who come out to the gender cafés and students with access to health care café are there to both listen and connect with people who are having an experience outside of their own,” said Jule.