All Posts Tagged With: "Canadians in Afghanistan"
U Regina considers joining Project Hero
Four universities have already agreed to offer free tuition to the children of fallen soldiers
According to The Regina Leader-Post, the University of Regina is considering joining four other universities in offering free tuition to the children of Canadian Forces soldiers and officers killed in Afghanistan.
Dubbed “Project Hero,” participating schools are offering students four years of paid tuition, and in some cases are offering free residence for up to two years.
“I think that we’ll probably get something finalized one way or another in the next short while,” says Barb Pollock, vice-president external relations at U Regina. “We’ve got to figure out the how if we’re going to do it because there’s a couple of options.”
The main proponent of the project, Kevin Reed, is a 42-year-old honorary lieutenant-colonel of an army reserve unit in southwestern Ontario. Memorial University of Newfoundland president Rick Hillier, Canada’s retired general, was the first to institute the policy, and Reed says the move inspired him to get other universities on board.
So far, Reed says the University of Ottawa, his alma mater, and the Universities of Windsor and Calgary are all on board.
Life passing by an office window
So I go down to the Tim Horton’s in our building to grab a late lunch. It’s late afternoon. The restaurant is on the second floor of our building. It has floor to ceiling windows, overlooking the spot where Jarvis and Mount Pleasant split. There’s a bicycle cop down there and he’s standing in the [...]
So I go down to the Tim Horton’s in our building to grab a late lunch. It’s late afternoon. The restaurant is on the second floor of our building. It has floor to ceiling windows, overlooking the spot where Jarvis and Mount Pleasant split.
There’s a bicycle cop down there and he’s standing in the middle of the road, stopping traffic. I wonder why.
I order my sandwich and walk back to the window. The bicycle cop is still holding traffic. Across the street, on the sidewalk, there’s a security guard from the construction site, a very skinny and slightly stooped Somali who is signaling pedestrians to get away from the road. I assume all of this must be construction-related. They’re putting up a 40 story condo across the street. Maybe a big truck is about to back out from the work site.
From this spot, I can see all the way up the street to the corner of Jarvis to Bloor, a couple of hundred yards north. When the first black car turns from Bloor on to Jarvis, a guy behind me says, “oh, must be dignitaries”.
“Must be the emperor of Japan,” I say. “I thought he was in Ottawa. But I guess today he’s in Toronto.”
One day last summer I was walking home, passing in front of the Royal Ontario Museum when the president of Ireland swooped down, in a high speed convoy of a dozen black cars and SUVs, with scores of cops and security guys with earpieces and suits on the street, blocking things off for a couple of hundred feet in either direction in front of the museum. There is something about the way a motorcade rolls, all speed and menace and get-out-of-our-way-or-else power that pleasures a certain lobe of the male brain.
And then I notice that the policeman is saluting. The black cars are flying Canadian flags. Some of have their windows half-way open, and I can see young blond faces, faces from a small town, looking out. These faces weren’t supposed to be riding limousines except to the prom, or to their wedding day. Some are waving.
And now I know what this is. “That’s not the emperor of Japan,” I say to the guy standing in line. “That’s Kandahar.”
The man behind the counter has finished making my sandwich. Ham and swiss on whole wheat, toasted, with regular mustard. Turkey and wild rice soup. A coffee with one milk.
On the elevator to the 11th floor, I try not to cry.
Canadians to build Great Wall of Kandahar University
3 Km perimeter to make campus safer; keep out nomadic goat herders
The Canadian government struck a deal last week with officials at Kandahar University to build a three-km perimeter of stone, brick and iron around the school campus. It has been dubbed the Great Wall of Kandahar. Construction is slated to begin within weeks and officials hope that by mid-fall, the new wall will address a litany of concerns hampering the school’s development.
The school blames its wide-open campus on a dusty plain for a vast assortment of woes, which range from serious safety issues to the simpler frustrations of life in chaotic Kandahar City.
Least among their concerns are the nomadic goat-herders who have been erecting tents and grazing cattle on the campus lawn, while slowly laying claim to one piece after another of the school property.
More serious are the fears that keep young people away—especially women.
School administrators say many women have told them they’d like to come to school, but won’t enrol because they fear attacks by those who believe women have no business in a classroom.
Females represent barely five per cent of the student body.
Administrators would also like to attract guest lecturers and visiting scholars in order to enrich the student experience at Kandahar University—but for now they’re hesitant to even bother sending invitations.
Then there’s robbery.
Just a few weeks ago, burglars busted into the school overnight and made off with one of its coveted electricity-generating solar panels.
