Canada Newsletter, September
A Q&A with Genevieve Leake
"Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest" - Matthew 9:37-38
On Sept. 3, UK Part Two Architectural Assistant Genevieve Leake stepped into the EMI Canada office for the first time to start her internship. We sat down with Genevieve to discuss her experiences and hopes for her time with EMI Canada.
Q. Where are you from?
A: Originally, I'm from Cardiff in South Wales. I moved to Sheffield to attend university for three years for my undergrad, worked for two years in London and then spent another three years in Sheffield studying for my master’s and working.
Q. How did you connect with EMI?
A: While studying for my master’s degree, I was a member of the Christian Union at university. One of the staff there recommended that I attend an event hosted by EMI. I think it was broadly talking about what kind of challenges you might find in the architectural and engineering industries if you're a Christian, but they talked about EMI as well and the internship and fellowship programs.
Q. Why did you apply to be an intern?
A: At about the same time as the EMI event I was starting to look for opportunities in international development work for when I finished my master’s. I wanted to find out if I might be interested in international development work longer term. I figured that because EMI's got the same reason for why they are doing this work as I would say my reason is, I’d apply for an internship.
Q. What excites you about being in Canada and going on the project trip?
A: I think it's twofold. I’m excited to live in a different country. I've never lived outside of the UK before; I've probably not even been out of the UK for more than three weeks before. I think there will be good personal growth from coming out of my comfort zone.
There's also an exciting element to the work that we're doing. I've always been interested in this area of architecture; I've always had two areas of architectural interest. My architectural first love, is residential and housing, but I’m also really interested in humanitarian work. I was involved with my university's humanitarian architecture society; it was one of the first things I got involved with. I focused my final design project of my master’s on international development. That was based in Cairo, Egypt, and I was looking at a design for a literacy centre. I found that to be in line with kind work I was interested in. I really enjoyed that project and did better on it than I had done in anything else, which was reassuring. It confirmed for me that it was a good thing for me to be working in this sector. Its exciting to be joining EMI’s project trip to do this work for real, to be impacting people’s lives.
Q. What surprises you most about Calgary?
A: The roads, the roads are so wide, and all the cars here are huge.
It seems like there's quite a relaxed culture as well, which is nice. There's a real family focus and people like spending a lot of their time outdoors, which I like. I think it suits me fairly well. And having the mountains nearby is incredible as well, it took my breath away.
Q. What do you hope to get out of this experience?
A: I think my main intention in doing this is trying to find out if it's a sector of the industry, which I want to work in long term. I'm hoping that if I do this work and decide this is something that I want to do in the future then it will motivate me to get my head down for a few years in the UK, in professional practice to get more experience and complete my part 3 qualification to become an Architect. Then I could focus on international development.
Being in Canada and travelling to Uganda, I’m also expecting there to be spiritual and personal growth from being out of my comfort zone and the learning that comes from that.
Q. How does faith influence your work and career?
A: It means that I have an approach where all people are equally loved by God and all people are valued by God. And therefore, no one is more deserving of one thing necessarily than another. That for a long time has influenced my approach to architecture. Access to good architecture is something that usually people have to pay for, but I don't think good architecture should be limited to only the people that can pay for it.
There's a way of loving people and there's a way of serving people and showing them care if other people aren't willing to do that work.
I know that different parts of the architectural industry would be a lot more financially rewarding and offer a lot more stability, but someone needs to do this work. And if God's given me the desire to do it and an interest in it, then I don't really think I should just turn around and say I'll just go do something else because I can make more money over there.