By Savannah Hallworth and Stéphane Cardinal
For the past six years, the Michaëlle Jean Centre for Global and Community Engagement has held annual campaigns to collect Aeroplan Miles that help students undertake experiential learning opportunities abroad and in northern Canada. Thanks to the generosity of uOttawa staff, friends and alumni, 24 students have had the chance to travel many miles to take part in meaningful community service.
The 2019 Aeroplan Pooling Campaign runs from January 7 to February 9. Gwen Madiba Moubouyi, recipient of the Alumni Association’s 2018 Young Alumni Award, has taken on the role of ambassador for this year’s campaign and will help reach out to uOttawa alumni and friends to encourage participation.
Below, meet two students who travelled to Africa thanks to the Aeroplan Miles they received last year.
Brigitte Lefebvre-Okankwu is a third-year biomedical science student and varsity athlete with the uOttawa women’s basketball team. In April 2018, she travelled with her team to Togo to build a basketball court for a local organization called Leading Youth, Sport and Development.
“No words can express how much joy this trip brought to my heart,” Lefebvre-Okankwu says. “The new basketball court we raised money for, the dance circles, discovering a beautiful new culture, the laughs and new friends, sharing our passion for the sport that we love – all of this added up to an unforgettable experience.
“What I loved the most was the moment right after the official opening of the court when everyone began dancing and singing,” she says.
Lefebvre-Okankwu has been playing basketball for many years and delights in passing on her love of the game to others.
“It’s important to me to promote sports and physical activity because it has so many positive effects on youth,” she says. “It helps them develop discipline and also creates new connections between people. Teammates can become like a second family – as mine have for me.”
Ouatina Bamba, a bachelor’s student in the Faculty of Education, travelled to Côte d’Ivoire to volunteer with a community group in a low-income neighbourhood of Abidjan. Bamba did remedial work with children and teens whose educational level ranged from kindergarten to the last year of high school.
Every day, the local partner he was volunteering with would assign him to tutor a group of students. The goal was to improve the children’s academic performance and ultimately to help keep youth in school.
“Guiding these students was rewarding for me and hopefully beneficial for them, because I brought the teaching and class-management experience I gained at uOttawa,” he says.
Committed to the success of the students, he returned to Abidjan during the holidays in December to continue his volunteering. Bamba believes students should not hesitate to consider community engagement opportunities overseas.
“People who travel and discover other cultures are more open, more tolerant and understand other people more easily,” he says.
Help us meet our goal of collecting 350,000 Aeroplan Miles. There are two ways to donate to our campaign this year:
- Go to our page on the Aeroplan website and donate today.
- Save and print out the card below and present it to participating retailers to have the miles automatically credited to our Aeroplan Pooling Campaign.