Queen's Yellow House provides a dedicated space on campus for students, as well as student groups, working to advance social justice, anti-racism, and inclusion. To further support and empower equity-deserving students, Yellow House has recently introduced For Us By Us: Resources to Support QTBIPoC Student Success.

This student-led initiative centralizes and highlights information and spaces relevant to the experiences of QTBIPoC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) students and spans diverse needs surrounding wellbeing, community building, identity building, academic and professional development.

“We learned through consultations with equity-deserving student groups and staff teams across Student Affairs this summer that students want a space online to support them as they celebrate their identity, find community, and look for academic and professional resources made just for them,” says Tianna Edwards, Equity, Diversity Inclusion Coordinator, Yellow House.

The toolkit includes:

• Physical and Mental Wellness: resources and services that are culturally sensitive, do not favour a Eurocentric lens and are provisioned through trauma-informed theories.
• Identity Building: intersectional resources to enrich students’ understanding of their lived experience.
• Solidarity Building: resources to build solidarity between communities and to honour allyship through events, traditions, and clubs.
• Academic Resources: to support intersectional academic needs of underrepresented students, ranging from culturally sensitive academic advising to intersectional tutelage.
• Professional Development resources: to help marginalized students prepare for and navigate their career paths and the systemic barriers associated with it.
• Scholarships, Bursaries, Awards and Aid: relevant to marginalized students on campus.

The toolkit also includes a series of interactive maps and grocery tips designed to connect students with tailored spaces and businesses that celebrate, validate, and empower their lived experiences. These include:  

• BIPoC Grocery Tips: A list generated by BIPoC students who have navigated this city and found where to go for various items that feel like home, including tips and advice categorized by global region. 
• QTBIPoC Relevant Spaces on Campus: This map highlights spaces to build community and gain support for marginalized students on campus.
• QTBIPoC Relevant Spaces in Downtown Kingston: learn about spaces in the Downtown Kingston area for QTBIPoC centered community building and support.
• QTBIPoC Relevant Spaces in Outer Kingston Community: This map features spaces for community building and support for QTBIPoC students in the Outer Kingston area.

“From my personal experience, finding meaningful community and tailored support can really make or break the university experience, and seems to be no easy feat for marginalized students,” says Ayden Adeyanju-Jackson, Queen’s third year student (Global Development Studies) and EDI Student Assistant at the Yellow House who led the research and design of this work over the summer. “Ideally, by highlighting locations and resources relevant to QTBIPoC lived experiences, the prospect of finding these intrinsic features of the university experience can feel more certain.”

This work will continue to evolve with insight from various student communities. This year, students can look forward to continued consultations planned with a wide range of student communities to ensure the toolkit continues to resonate with the evolving needs of equity-deserving communities. The Yellow House will also be launching a series of events that brings this toolkit alive through active conversation, learning sessions, and celebrations of QTBIPoC identities.

Learn more about the toolkit on the Yellow House website, and follow Yellow House on Instagram or sign up for the Yellow House newsletter to learn about upcoming events and initiatives.