Students embrace service learning

A University of Manitoba Access grad herself, recruitment officer Christine Pierre knows that more needs to be done to attract Aboriginal and other inner-city students to university. All too often, these students don’t see university as a viable option for themselves or do not pursue the high school requirements necessary to make it a reality. Pierre developed an innovative program in which she meets with inner-city students at R.B. Russell High School every two weeks during the school year then brings them to the university for campus tours and engaging classroom and lab activities.

Following his installation ceremony at Fall Convocation, president David Barnard hosted a leadership symposium to address the question, “What kind of leadership creates the circumstances where people achieve great things?”. Barnard invited a number of national leaders to share their thoughts. Participants included, Gail Asper, president of CanWest Global Foundation; Don Black, executive chair of Greystone Managed Investments; Andrew Coyne, political columnist of Maclean’s Magazine; David Dodge, former governor of the Bank of Canada and Chancellor of Queen’s University; Claire Morris, president of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada; and Ilse Truernicht, CEO of the MaRS Discovery District.

When a group of Asper School of Business students realized that Manitoba is home to the largest number of youth reliant on food banks, they sprang into action. The students joined with 15 other universities across Canada to take part in Five Days for the Homeless, an awareness and fundraising campaign to support charities for the homeless. During the five-day event, the students slept outside and lived only on what they could get through the kindness of those who passed by. The students raised over $13,000 which was donated to Resource Assistance for Youth (RaY), a community-based social service organization in Winnipeg committed to helping at-risk youth and young adults find a way back from the streets.

Sarah Gordon, Nursing, got a first-hand experience in the challenges of delivering health care in a developing country when she spent three weeks in Tanzania, Africa with Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief. Gordon worked with local nurses to immunize children and administer vitamins in the impoverished area.

Bison athletes swapped their jerseys for aprons for a week during the holiday season by volunteering to feed the homeless and hungry at Siloam Mission – a local soup kitchen and homeless shelter. The 2008 Christmas season marked the fourth consecutive year that Bison athletes have contributed in this way and it was the first time all campus teams pitched in to lend a hand. Second-year Nursing students also established their first health screening clinic at Siloam Mission’s Saul Sair Health Centre.

The Faculty of Dentistry, with support from Variety, the Children’s Charity of Manitoba, continues to provide oral health care for elementary students in 15 inner-city schools in Winnipeg. The Faculty of Dentistry is also now working with Variety, the RBC Foundation, the North West Company and ADESA to provide the Variety Children’s Cavity Prevention Project aimed at helping improve oral health among children in Norway House. Through the program, dentistry students work to improve their skills while offering free dental care to many who would otherwise not be able to afford it.