Welcome to 
Student Reach International is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing students with humanitarian opportunities. We encourage students to Reach In to their hearts, Reach Out to their peers, and Reach Beyond all obstacles. We envision students playing an integral role in overcoming global poverty. By supporting volunteerism and global compassion, we are making a lasting impact not only overseas in impoverished communities, but in Canada as well.
Check back soon for more SRI events!
Posted on 15 Dec 2009
Guelph students extend aid to African nation
December 13, 2009 - VIK KIRSCH
GUELPH — A group of Guelph students is trying to make a difference in the lives of citizens of a small south African nation, and the public can help.
They are working on a youth-focused documentary and hope to receive funding from Aviva Canada’s recently launched $500,000 community fund. A variety of community projects are vying in a competition for proposals and anyone can vote through the insurance firm’s contest website: www.avivacommunityfund.org. [You can vote for Reach Lesotho's idea by clicking here!]
“We have a responsibility here to help others elsewhere,” Abid Virani, co-founder and director of Student Reach International, said Sunday.
Simply called Hopeful Documentary, the video is intended to inspire students across Canada to raise $25 million to combat HIV and AIDS in Lesotho, an effort called Reach Lesotho.
It taps students both in Canada and the African nation through a common cause.
“Youth are making a difference,” said Virani, a Guelphite currently studying international development at McGill University in Montreal.
Reach Lesotho will raise awareness through the video documentary highlighting Guelph-based Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik’s Bracelet of Hope campaign, which to date has raised more than $1 million for AIDS relief in Lesotho from sale of the bracelets.
Student Reach International is teaching an initial dozen Guelph high school students to take leadership roles in humanitarian and development projects here and in the developing world. At the end of the year-long program, they will travel to Lesotho in 2011 to participate with youths there in development projects, essentially serving as ambassadors for the Bracelet of Hope campaign.
With the help of the documentary to be created in the months ahead, for which preliminary work has begun, they will return to Canada to urge as many as five million students across the country to wear Bracelets of Hope, which are handmade by women in Africa.
While in Lesotho, the dozen Guelph students from Centennial, Guelph and John F. Ross collegiates will be working with counterpart secondary school students there on a variety of projects such as tree planting, said Virani, a Centennial Collegiate graduate whose family lives in Guelph.
Virani said the video won’t have a negative tone, lamenting the harsh reality of life in Lesotho, but will accent the positive change that development work is doing there. It will show how lives can be changed for the better.
“We’re showing hope. That’s why we’re focusing on youth.” They represent a brighter future for the nation, he explained.
Among those going to Lesotho and being part of the documentary is Grade 11 Centennial student Drew Anderson.
“For me, it was something new. I haven’t experienced anything like it,” the 16-year-old said, adding the big attraction is rallying the Canadian community to a worthy cause.
“It’s more just getting involved in the community.” He wants to shed light on social justice issues in particular, he said.
Virani, 19, said he has realized from travelling outside Canada that this country has much to be grateful for. That included a 2008 trip to his family’s modest origins in Uganda, which contrasted with a subsequently more comfortable living in Guelph. The Royal City is where his father, Altaf Virani, is an information technology director and his mother, Yasmin Alidina, owns a hearing aid clinic, he said.
With a good living here for Canadians comes a responsibility to help others outside Canada reach their full potential, Virani reasoned.
He’s appealing to Canadians to endorse the Reach Lesotho project by voting for it on the Aviva website.
GUELPH — A group of Guelph students is trying to make a difference in the lives of citizens of a small south African nation, and the public can help.
They are working on a youth-focused documentary and hope to receive funding from Aviva Canada’s recently launched $500,000 community fund. A variety of community projects are vying in a competition for proposals and anyone can vote through the insurance firm’s contest website: www.avivacommunityfund.org. [You can vote for Reach Lesotho's idea by clicking here!]
“We have a responsibility here to help others elsewhere,” Abid Virani, co-founder and director of Student Reach International, said Sunday.
Simply called Hopeful Documentary, the video is intended to inspire students across Canada to raise $25 million to combat HIV and AIDS in Lesotho, an effort called Reach Lesotho.
It taps students both in Canada and the African nation through a common cause.
“Youth are making a difference,” said Virani, a Guelphite currently studying international development at McGill University in Montreal.
Reach Lesotho will raise awareness through the video documentary highlighting Guelph-based Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik’s Bracelet of Hope campaign, which to date has raised more than $1 million for AIDS relief in Lesotho from sale of the bracelets.
Student Reach International is teaching an initial dozen Guelph high school students to take leadership roles in humanitarian and development projects here and in the developing world. At the end of the year-long program, they will travel to Lesotho in 2011 to participate with youths there in development projects, essentially serving as ambassadors for the Bracelet of Hope campaign.
With the help of the documentary to be created in the months ahead, for which preliminary work has begun, they will return to Canada to urge as many as five million students across the country to wear Bracelets of Hope, which are handmade by women in Africa.
While in Lesotho, the dozen Guelph students from Centennial, Guelph and John F. Ross collegiates will be working with counterpart secondary school students there on a variety of projects such as tree planting, said Virani, a Centennial Collegiate graduate whose family lives in Guelph.
Virani said the video won’t have a negative tone, lamenting the harsh reality of life in Lesotho, but will accent the positive change that development work is doing there. It will show how lives can be changed for the better.
“We’re showing hope. That’s why we’re focusing on youth.” They represent a brighter future for the nation, he explained.
Among those going to Lesotho and being part of the documentary is Grade 11 Centennial student Drew Anderson.
“For me, it was something new. I haven’t experienced anything like it,” the 16-year-old said, adding the big attraction is rallying the Canadian community to a worthy cause.
“It’s more just getting involved in the community.” He wants to shed light on social justice issues in particular, he said.
Virani, 19, said he has realized from travelling outside Canada that this country has much to be grateful for. That included a 2008 trip to his family’s modest origins in Uganda, which contrasted with a subsequently more comfortable living in Guelph. The Royal City is where his father, Altaf Virani, is an information technology director and his mother, Yasmin Alidina, owns a hearing aid clinic, he said.
With a good living here for Canadians comes a responsibility to help others outside Canada reach their full potential, Virani reasoned.
He’s appealing to Canadians to endorse the Reach Lesotho project by voting for it on the Aviva website.
Content Management Powered by CuteNews
