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Vancouver: Exceptional Youth Rewarded

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  • Vancouver: Exceptional Youth Rewarded

    EXCEPTIONAL YOUTH REWARDED
    Rafael Brusilow

    Metro Canada - Vancouver
    June 2 2008
    Canada

    Proving that giving to others makes you richer, 20 of Canada's
    brightest volunteers are getting a free university education as reward
    for their efforts in helping to make their own communities better.

    The 20 high school students from across Canada were each chosen
    to receive a TD Canada Trust Scholarship for Community Leadership,
    valued at up to $60,000 and covering four years of tuition, spending
    money and offers of summer employment with TD Canada Trust.

    Each student demonstrated initiative, ingenuity and perseverance in
    doing something that benefited his or her own community, qualities
    the program's executive director, Jane Thompson, says cut across all
    of Canada's cultural, economic and political barriers.

    "Our winners are from the full range of Canadian society, coast to
    coast, all different income levels and all sorts of issues in our
    community. It's an incredible experience just to spend time with
    these amazing young people," Thompson said.

    Diana Varvarici, 18, from Newtonbrook Secondary School in Toronto was
    honoured for her work creating a volunteer translation service for new
    immigrants to Canada as well as her efforts running cultural events in
    her community, which raised money for charity. Varvarici, multilingual
    herself -- along with English she speaks Russian, Armenian and French
    -- got the idea for a volunteer translation service upon seeing how
    hard life can be for new immigrants who don't speak English or French.

    "When they come here, they don't necessarily understand all of the
    things they need to do in this country because it's so difficult to
    adapt to a new place," she said.

    Varvarici's 65 student volunteers, all aged 14-22, offer help to
    immigrants in 15 different languages as well as advice and assistance
    in dealing with OHIP, social insurance, legal documents and even
    transit travel routes.

    Seventeen-year-old Kayode Fatoba received the award for creating a
    soccer program to give kids in his community -- Toronto's troubled Jane
    and Finch neighbourhood -- something constructive and empowering to do
    in their free time. The soccer program started two years ago with the
    only funding coming from a local hot dog vendor who paid for uniforms
    and gave the kids free hot dogs after games. Today the program boasts
    three teams with roughly 15 players each and is growing. Without the
    scholarship award, Fatoba would never have gotten a chance to go to
    university -- now he plans to attend Simon Fraser University to study
    Health Sciences in September.

    "The most rewarding part of the program is that a lot of people look
    up to me, and that's something you can't buy. When a kid looks up to
    you, that's priceless," Fatoba said.

    Jane Wu, 17, from Calgary created and organized the "Beauty and
    Brains" conference to promote stronger career aspirations among young
    women. The conference was so successful, it now has the funding
    to continue for the next three-to-five years and Wu plans to take
    it nationwide.

    "What we really want to do is to expose women to the vast horizons
    they have in front of them. It's absolutely amazing to see how a
    small idea can snowball into something so big," Wu said.

    Her advice? Try getting engaged in your own community.

    "When you're being selfless you learn so much about yourself and
    connect so well to your community. Just do it once and I promise
    you'll be hooked," she said.

    Cassandra Fong, 18, from Vancouver did something sure to amaze viewers
    of crime dramas like CSI and Law & Order -- she created a lie detector
    test which is 100-per-cent accurate, compared to about 90-per-cent
    accuracy for a traditional test.

    The secret is that instead of measuring shifts in perspiration and
    heart rate like a normal test, Fong's test measures chaotic shifts in
    stomach frequencies. She got the idea for the technique when learning
    about how the stomach works in her biology class.

    Fong's invention has garnered interest from police services and
    university researchers and Fong has already started the patent process.

    As for her friends, Fong jokes, "They definitely won't be lying to
    me now!"

    Winners of the award program, started 13 years ago, were chosen from a
    pool of 4200 kids across Canada by a panel of judges, which included
    Canadian Senators, business and educational professionals and past
    award recipients.
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