Simcoe student gets top volunteer award
A tireless St. Catharines high school student volunteer was recently handed a Governor Generals Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers.
Sama Nanayakkara, who is in Grade 12, is a leader in the Simcoe Outreach Society.
The society is a school group which runs events and activities to promote social justice.
Nanayakkara has led several campaigns, including a food drive that collected more than 1,500 pounds of food for Community Care, the adoption of several Gillian’s Place families for Christmas, and a dance to raise money for local Syrian refugees.
She has also run several campaigns to increase knowledge about society’s vulnerable populations and is a volunteer for a number of causes.
Nanayakkara received the award Wednesday at an event in Toronto hosted by the ‘Me To We’ organization.
Brock University graduate student Heryka Miranda and her supervisor, Nancy Francis — a professor in the Department of Kinesiology — are researching ways foreign migrant farm workers can handle homesickness and isolation.
Miranda’s concept is called “movement-based expressive arts therapy,” says Brock in a release.
Expressive arts therapy includes song, music, dance, visual arts, voice work and knitting, with a view to encouraging healing.
Mexican and Guatemalan women and men across Niagara attended Miranda’s ‘dance for relaxation’ sessions, that include breathing exercises, guided visualizations, improvised movement to music and meditative drawing.
Miranda and Mendoza will be performing their dance, The Sunflower Man, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Wednesday, Oct. 26.
A report called ‘Moving to Net Zero: Colleges Leading the Way’, is highlighting 24 provincial colleges’ achievements in five areas: research, community leadership, college programs, transportation and campus upgrades to reduce the province’s carbon footprint.
It notes Niagara College recently received its Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education silver star. Accomplishments that led to this rating include completing an inventory of academic courses to ensure almost 10 per cent of courses offered are connected to sustainability. Two aquaponic systems in the college’s greenhouse have also been installed and community partnerships include the General Motors Global Rivers Environmental Education Network, and The Walker Environmental Group;
The college was also recently presented with the 2016 ‘most engaged member award’ from the Niagara Sustainability Initiative.