This past fall, the UTE decided to sponsor a member and a student to accompany the International Children’s Awareness (ICA) Canada team to Cameroon.
We are pleased to announce that the sponsored member is Roxanne Lodge of Winnipeg, MB. Roxanne was in Africa a few years ago as a tourist and saw first hand the need for water projects, such as the ICA water projects in Cameroon. “In a way, I believe that while I am there I am representing not only our union, but also the Winnipeg Tax Centre (WTC), and even Canada. I would like to help demonstrate that we care what happens in other parts of the world.”
The first student recipient to accompany Captain Smith is Rachel Gardiner of Goulds, NL. Rachel was first introduced to World Water Day through the Girl Guides as a young child. Over the years she tried to do her part in conserving water whenever she could. In her essay, she notes “The majority of residents of these nations (industrialized countries such as Canada), who used upwards of 150 litres of water daily, are appalled when there are short term water bans and complain if they are unable to water their lawn “when necessary” during the summer. All of this occurs while, according to the UN, the average African must live using only 20 litres of water a day and approximately 6000 children die every day from lack of clean water or poor hygiene.”
We would like to congratulate the first student and member to receive sponsorship to accompany Captain Smith and the ICA team and we wish them good luck on this journey.