Education Fairs

Today Team Seneca is promoting the programs at an education fair in the city of Medellin, Colombia. One of the many such fairs that takes place around the world throughout the year. It is a Sunday and at this fair probably close to 3,000 people come to see what is available in Canada, the USA, the UK, Australia and New Zealand (and at some of the these fairs you will also other countries promote their programs such as for example The Netherlands).

Alfredo, our new student recruiter (or as we call the job of these team members: "International Business Development Managers") for the Spanish speaking Latin America region, is earning his pay check at these events! He also gave an excellent presentation about "Studying in Canada" during this event with of course some special attention for "Study at Seneca"...

After the fair the work for Alfredo is to follow up with the more interested prospects and also with the agencies we work with in this city. The next two days we will be visiting a few of these agencies for further updates and training for their staff members.. This specific fair today is organized in a location near a huge modern shopping mall with a spectacular view over the city of Medellin....

Juan Valdez again

Oh this wonderful Colombian Coffee from my best friend here: Juan Valdez. After the week in Brazil now a week in Colombia. After a meeting with my former Bogota colleagues of SENA (see my posts of all of 2013) today on the way to Medellin. At the airport enjoying another good cuppa....

Great views of the city from my room on the 16th floor of the Novotel. This will be my office for the next few days with an agency fair tomorrow (Sunday) from 2-7 PM here in the hotel, then a few agency visits on Monday & Tuesday + another few meetings with SENA folks on Wednesday. Then back to Bogota for a few more days of fairs and agency training sessions.

Promotional work in Brazil

This week I am in two cities of Brazil (Sao Paulo and Belo Horizonte) with one of our new staff members in Seneca International. Tiago came to Seneca three years ago after a career with General Motors Brazil (in Sales and Marketing positions); he joined our team of student recruiters in January and he will focus purely on the marketing and promotion in Brazil for "Study at Seneca".

People who know me will understand that I made this photo with a big smile on my face. The team of Niagara which I helped build between 1995 and 2013 brotherly next to the table of Seneca....

Few days Holland

My sister Ger and her husband Bert are 50 years married this year. Last Saturday they organized a little party at their house with a few old friends and their three kids and spouses. In April they have another party with their kids and grand-children (3 x 3). I was fortunate to be able to attend the party this weekend and we were all treated to a big Dutch Chinese meal catered at their home. My date at the party was my other sister Hanneke....

Yesterday 11 of the 15 old gang of friends of the 1974-1981 period at Delft University of Technology came together for dinner in Amsterdam. Always fun to catch up a bit with everybody!

Listening and advising

During our last day this week in Aswan we listened to a group of the local trainers and gave them advice on "learner centered teaching". We also met with a group of owners of new start-up small businesses who benefited from training programs at the local partner institution.

 The CEO of the local partner organization was happy with our work. Together we have made some nice progress in the capacity building capacity here in Aswan. That deserves during the evenings a bit of relaxing time....

Goodbye beautiful Aswan. See you next time....

On the river Nile

The history and mystique of the land around the mighty river Nile. Today we had a bit of time in between busy activities to take an hour on one of the old sailing boats of the Nile.

And at our hotel there was a big event hosted by the Rotary around a large local health project where the good women and men of the local Rotary have assisted....

Training in Aswan

Today our team monitored a few classes of the electricity technician and solar maintenance programs we helped our colleagues here in Aswan develop. This class was about safety of working at heights. On the roof of the building a few solar panels are installed for instruction purposes; the cords go into the building for that purpose; would be done a bit different in Canada with more strict regulations....

And storage of materials would also be organized a bit different. But the project now has already achieved that these short programs (10 weeks) are being delivered and assist unemployed youth with new opportunities in the local job market. The classrooms have the training boards for electrical training and a few solar panels for instruction sessions.

These are some of the first panels in the city of Aswan, a city with a population of about 300,000 in the far south of Egypt. Nearby large new solar farms are being constructed in the desert; this will be an area of economic growth for the region. We had meetings with the instructors and we visited a music program where I signed up....

And after a busy day I had some time for a nice walk along the river Nile near our hotel.....