This holiday season, while Townshippers are enjoying cranberries and turkey, Yannick Daoudi will bicycle around Uganda, a landlocked country in East Africa, to raise money for toilets.

Daoudi hopes to raise $3,000 by biking 1,000 kilometres through Uganda to help build badly needed water and sanitary infrastructure at Keyo Secondary School in war-ravaged Northern Uganda.
The “Buy kilometers, build a school in Uganda!” project Daoudi created is another step in his efforts to raise money for the “Schools 4 Schools” initiative which he signed Champlain College and Bishops University to. The initiative enables a cluster of schools in North America to sponsor a specific school in war-ravaged northern Uganda.
“I travel a lot,” says Daoudi “and I take a lot from these travels and the people I meet along the way. I would really like to give something back.”
Keyo Secondary School was chosen as one of the top 10 institutions that had the best hope for creating lasting change in the education sector. It is one of the three schools that were displaced by the conflict and has recently returned to its original site after more then ten years. 

As a professor and member of the International Studies Committee at Champlain College – Lennoxville, Daoudi is no stranger to humanitarian issues. Last summer he accompanied students to Peru for 6 weeks to work in orphanages and schools. He has also organized a partnership between Bishops’ Down Under club and Champlain’s International Studies students for this initiative. Students from both schools are participating.
“I try to make students aware of international issues,” said Daoudi. “And get involved in various projects as much as possible.”
Students and Daoudi have been busy planning various fundraisers this semester including a night at the Maysen Pub this Thursday where food and advanced ticket sales will support the cause. This past Halloween two groups went out to collect donations instead of candy and came away with $150. 

Other fundraisers are being planned such as a slave auction, where students auction a service they can perform for somebody and a movie night, where proceeds from popcorn sales will contribute towards the cause.
The NGO Daoudi is working with is called Invisible Children and it works in the rehabilitation of child soldiers in that part of the world. Over 90 per cent of the funds raised from “Schools 4 Schools” goes directly to northern Uganda for implementation. The other 10 per cent is used for related administrative and material costs for the program.

 To read the whole story please pick up today's Record. 

By Corrinna Pole
Lennoxville

Tuesday, November 4, 2008