Global Citizenship Award

Veronica Fynn, BA’04

Born into poverty in West Africa and raised by a single mother of eight, Ms Veronica Fynn learned early on what it meant to overcome adversity. In the early-1990s, while still a teenager, she fled her war-ravaged homeland of Liberia. She spent the next 13 years separated from her family, finding herself internally displaced several times before being forced to spend nine years as a refugee in Ghana. In spite of her struggles, she still managed to earn a BSc from the University of Ghana in 2000.

On August 23, 2001, Fynn came to Canada with only two suitcases and twenty dollars in her pocket. Thanks to a sponsorship by the World University Service of Canada (WUSC) Student Refugee Program, she was able to attend UBC, earning a BA in Psychology in 2004.

During her time at UBC, Fynn was committed to raising the profile of Africa on campus. She founded “Africa Awareness,” a student group dedicated to building awareness about the continent’s issues while also advocating for the incorporation of African perspectives and disciplines into UBC’s curriculum. The two major legacies of her involvement with the organization are the annual Africa Awareness conference, which has brought some of the continent’s best known thinkers and activists to campus, and the creation of the UBC African Studies Program in 2005.

After graduating from UBC, Fynn went on to complete a Master of Public Health degree at the University of Nottingham (UK) on a Universitas 21 scholarship. She then spent six months with the International Organization for Migration in Geneva, working as a Health and Human Trafficking Research Assistant.

Upon her return to Canada in 2007, Fynn continued doing research and policy work in the area of human trafficking for the BC Ministry of Public Safety and the Solicitor General’s Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons. The following year she founded EV Research Inc., a consulting company focused on promoting and conducting research on vulnerable populations. Some of her major projects have been publishing the first Journal of Internal Displacement, providing war-affected children with access to computer technologies, writing children’s books on human rights and creating a blog that raises awareness of the issues that women and children in conflict-ravaged areas face.

She received a Master of Law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School at York University in 2009 and is currently in her second year of the PhD program there (thanks to the Mary Jane Mossman and Harley D. Hallett Scholarships). She has also authored several books, chapters and journal articles. Less than ten years after coming to Canada as a refugee, Fynn is now well on her way to becoming one of Canada’s leading advocates for the rights of refugees and internally displaced persons.