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Brazilian Print Futures student wins award of excellence in communications

By Tamara Letkeman, doug Editor

When Glauce Fleury decided to leave Brazil to pursue a writing diploma in Canada, many people told her she’d never make it. “They said I would always be competing against Canadians or other native English speakers and wouldn’t have a chance,” Glauce recalls.

But the pull of her dream and living abroad was too strong, and soon she found herself at Douglas College taking the Print Futures: Professional Writing program – and proving the naysayers wrong.

After her first year in the two-year program, Glauce landed a communications internship at the David Suzuki Foundation. What’s more, she recently received the Student Communicator of the Year Award of Excellence from the International Association of Business Communicators (B.C. branch), a network of more than 600 communications professionals from across the province.

She received the award for a 68-page manual for international students at Douglas College she designed and co-wrote with a classmate. “I am really proud of having written that manual, regardless of the award,” Glauce says.

The manual was an assignment for one of her Print Futures classes, though she treated it as anything but. A trained journalist, Glauce put the same amount of care and work into it as she would with a “real” job. “I knew it wasn’t going to be perfect, but it had to be my perfect,” she says.

Glauce’s journey hasn’t been easy. Besides taking on the task of learning how to write professionally in another language – no mean feat – she is also the only international student in year one of her program. But she says receiving the award has made it all worth it. “English is not my first language, so it means so much to me,” she says.

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