UWindsor participates in provincial post-secondary campaign
By Rana Nabil Diab
News Reporter
February 6, 2008
 The Blue Chair campaign was launched on Jan. 24 at The Basement, in an effort to help at risk Ontario youth access post-secondary education.
The campaign, sponsored by Ontario’s Undergraduate Student Association (OUSA), focuses on disadvantaged youth who face barriers to education, such as poverty or cultural disadvantages.
The Blue Chair campaign believes in providing students with the opportunity to access post-secondary education in hopes of fostering social, economic, and cultural health.
In a 2006 policy paper titled “Early outreach programs: reaching out early to reach higher,” OUSA stressed the need to develop early outreach programs to raise awareness about post-secondary education.
“The chairs are a tangible representation of chairs that are left open by students who face systematic challenges in getting to the post-secondary sector, such as being an aboriginal student, a rural or northern student, or a low income student,” said Zach Cranny, Vice President of University Affairs for the UWSA.
“For the [Wednesday night] event at the pub, there [was] a two dollar cover and all funds raised [were] donated to early outreach programs like Pathways to Education in Regent Park in Toronto,” he added.
The Pathways program started as an initiative of the Regent Park Community Health Centre in 2001 to help students in that community stay in school and go on to post-secondary studies.
The program was a huge success in the area, causing Pathways to expand into five other communities: Lawrence Heights in the GTA, Rexdale in the GTA, Kitchener, Pinecrest-Queensway in Ottawa, and Verdun in Montreal.
“These kids walked into our program with their heads bowed and no hope for the future—and who could blame them after facing so many barriers in life? But they graduated with smiles on their faces and their heads held high, confident that they were on an equal level with the rest of their academic peers who didn’t grow up in neighbourhoods like Regent Park,” stated Carolyn Acker, Executive Director of Pathways to Education Canada.
“Nothing could make us prouder than seeing these kids transformed from hopeless individuals into confident future leaders of society.”
“What is so great about the Blue Chair campaign is that university students are helping high school students achieve their academic dreams. University students have faced the same hardships and barriers that high school students are currently facing so they are more able to identify with each other on a more personal basis. We need more campaigns like the Blue Chair campaign to raise awareness of the barriers that low-income students face before entering post-secondary schools,” she added.
Among the achievements that Pathways is most proud of are the reduction of dropout rates in the Regent Park community, the recognition from other organizations, and the expansion of five new sites.
“It’s hard to list them all, but what Pathways is most proud of is seeing so many students graduate from high school, after being told over and over again that they could never do it because they didn’t have the grades or the money to get into post-secondary schools,” said Acker.
Anyone interested in helping with the Blue Chair Campaign can visit www.ousa.ca/bluechair.
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