The Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA) has relaunched its WalkSafe pilot program for fall 2026.

WalkSafe lets students walk with a trained student volunteer to any destination on the main campus after dark. Students can request to be accompanied by a WalkSafe volunteer through WUSA’s WalkSafe request form. The program runs Monday to Friday from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The fall 2026 pilot is the second trial of the service, which was originally proposed through WUSA’s Change Engine in 2024 by Katie Traynor. Following the first trial in winter 2026, the WUSA Board received a report at its meeting on June 18 outlining student feedback and proposed changes to better meet the program’s expectations .

Majdalen Azouz, WUSA’s vice-president of student experience, said that the re-launch came from limited engagement during the first pilot. “We did a pilot back in April and March, which wasn’t as successful as we hoped it would be, but it was successful in terms of marketing interaction,” Azouz said. “A lot of undergrad students knew what WalkSafe was, what WalkSafe does, and how it does benefit the undergrad population. But there was not really as much use. Just [from the] winter term, we didn’t feel it was feasible enough to know if we were successful in running a programme to combat student safety.” WUSA decided to extend the pilot because of the timing and location of the first trial. Azouz mentioned that shorter daylight hours and inclement weather during the winter term meant that students left campus earlier, resulting in less participation than expected.

WUSA is now using the number of walks requested as one metric to evaluate the pilot’s efficacy. While WUSA received some requests during the first day of the fall pilot at the carnival, Azouz said that one of the biggest challenges is volunteer recruitment. “So we’ve decided to flip our marketing strategies a little bit differently,” she stated, by emphasizing the benefits of volunteering for the program. “I remember when we were talking about WalkSafe, I told them …[that] in my undergrad, if WalkSafe was an option, then I would volunteer for it, because my mentality is, ‘I want to go to med school’; I’m thinking about what med school wants, or what medical schools essentially want to see. So WalkSafe would be great [for that],” Azouz shared.

The WUSA Board approved $15,000 in funding in June to fund the second pilot. A fee increase to continue funding Walksafe will be contingent on votes at a future Annual Members Meeting.