MONTREAL/October 2, 2008—
Left to right: Awel Uwihanganye, co-founder and co-director, Concordia Volunteer Abroad Program (CVAP); Cassandra Elizabeth Porter; Gabriel Bran Lopez, former Forces Avenir award recipient; Concordia President, Judith Woodsworth; Peter Schiefke, co-founder and co-director, CVAP; Karen Haffey and Esther Kalaba from the Collecting Loss: Weaving Threads of Memory project.
Concordia University is proud to announce that two Concordia-based projects won Forces Avenir Awards at last night’s 10th awards ceremony at the Centre CDP Capital in Montreal. The Concordia Volunteer Abroad Program (CVAP) won for the category of Mutual aid, peace and justice and Collecting Loss: Weaving Threads of Memory was awarded the Projet par excellence. These prestigious awards honor students, and student-initiated projects, for their outstanding work in community service and raising social consciousness. An independent jury selected the winners in 13 categories.
Collecting Loss is a project created by Concordians Esther Kabala and Karen Haffey. In an effort to help themselves and others come to terms with the loss of loved ones, they are collecting clothing worn by deceased loved ones along with a story from the contributor. The clothing is then reworked by textile artist Kalaba into something new. So far they have received more than 110 donations from Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom.
They plan to have an installation in Toronto next autumn featuring art created from the garments as well as photographs of the original clothing and recorded stories by the contributors. The results of the clothing and stories collection are presented on the website at www.collectingloss.com and the final goal of the project is to create a book.
CVAP was founded by Concordians Peter Schiefke and Awel Uwihanganye in 2004. Every year CVAP sends student volunteers to its Concordia Village located in the war-torn region of Gulu in Northern Uganda. The initiative came as a true blessing for a country ravaged by more than 20 years of civil war and a serious HIV/AIDS epidemic that has orphaned thousands of children and resulted in the fact that half the population are now under the age of 15.
Not only did they create a non-profit humanitarian organization to help the Ugandan population, they also made sure it would be perpetuated. During a student referendum held at Concordia in November 2005, CVAP obtained recurrent funding for the project; students at the university agreed to pay $0.50 per credit directly from their student fees to support the organization’s operations. So far they have collected $2 million towards the construction of two houses for families, a career orientation program, a lecture on leadership, an artistic performance promoting drug abuse prevention, the computerization of records at the medical centre, creative workshops for youngsters, the setting up of a community garden, an HIV/AIDS testing clinic and awareness campaign, a sports competition, a day care centre and the list goes on. As an in-house volunteer program that is fully funded by students, CVAP is the first of its kind in North America. For more information on CVAP please visit www.concordiavolunteers.org.
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Source :
Tanya Churchmuch
Senior Media Relations Advisor
Concordia University
