Blitz in Ottawa-Gatineau to promote awareness of education for young girls in Niger
Since the beginning of this project in 2005, impressive results have been reached: more than $40 000 in financial contributions and more than $500 000 in medical equipment has been gathered, thousands of dollars worth of broadcasting materials has been distributed to the Niger journalism school and over 10 000 kg of management books have been given to the University of Niger. All of these elements were assembled to assist in finding sustainable development solutions for Niger.
Once more this year, “Making Niger our Business” is in need of the public’s collaboration to assure the success of this campaign. Several fundraising activities will take place between November 23–29, 2009, in the most popular areas of the National Capital region. Further to this, the students have organised a visual campaign. Giant images will be projected onto buildings in the downtown core to encourage the public’s awareness.
This year, “Making Niger our Business” focuses on a new problem: the education of young girls. The percentage of young Nigerian girls that have access to education is only 20%, an eye opening statistic that alarms U of O students. Professor Guy Laflamme and his students have established an ambitious social marketing program that aims to increase the enrolment rate of young Nigerian girls.
As a part of their course based on experiential learning, students have established an online blog to initiate a dialogue with students of the University of Niger. This interaction between Canadians and Nigerians will allow them to refine the action plan that will be implemented following the fundraising campaign. Members of the public are also encouraged to submit their thoughts on the blog.
A new feature to this campaign: donations can now be made online and anyone who makes a contribution to this project will receive an official tax receipt from the University of Ottawa. Please consult the web addresses below for more information.
Under the supervision of Guy Laflamme, more than 50 students in his consumer behavior class at the Telfer School of Management are working to ensure the success of the fifth phase of the "Making Niger our Business" project. In addition to the contribution to Niger, this project seeks to provoke a social conscience and a sense of ethics within students who are the future of the business world.
The actual situation of Niger in numbers:
- Annual income per capital, just over $200 dollars.
- Life expectancy is 48 years old, only 42 years old for women.
- Coverage for sanitation is capped at 32%
- Access to drinkable water at 52% of the population
- Enrolment rate of 34%.
- Last rank worldwide according to the human development index.
For more information:
Web site: sites.telfer.uOttawa.ca/niger/ [This link is no longer available]
Blog: adm3721.skyrock.com/
Louis Sirois
Student of the University of Ottawa
Tel: (613) 889-7795
Guy Laflamme
University of Ottawa
Tel: (613) 862-8499
