Halloween 2018

The team of Seneca International had fun today dressing up as a Canada Olympic team. we rewarded ourselves with a wonderful potluck lunch; look at that nice food from different parts of the world...

Fall convocation

Sandra - with whom I worked in 2013 during my year of work in Colombia (see my blog posts from that year) - came to Seneca in January 2017 to improve her English. Afterwards she enrolled in one of our post-graduate programs (International Business) and she graduated in August - with honors (meaning all "As"). She now studies a 2nd post-graduate program (Global Logistics - Supply Chain). Today she had her graduation ceremony of the International Business program (called here in Canada the "Convocation"). It was nice to see a proud Sandra who in Colombia obtained a law degree.

It was nice to see the hundreds of graduates walk over the podium, including Sandra. Many of the graduates - like Sandra - came from elsewhere in the world. A long journey for all of them.

We also got a photo with the current Seneca college President who gave a very nice convocation speech to the graduates and to many of their parents as well as friends. The valedictorian today was a student from India who at home already had obtained a bachelor degree in computer sciences as well as and MBA. Today he celebrated graduating from an Events Management post-graduate program.

Rotary and Polio

Today this year's President of the Rotary International Foundation spoke at a conference of Rotary Clubs in the Niagara region. He is from the Bahamas where he managed for many years one of the larger local hospitals and he has been an active Rotary member during most of his career. During the past two decades he dedicated a lot of time to organize assistance projects in Haiti with a focus on the availability of water & sanitation. Today he spoke about how close we are as humanity to rid the world of the polio disease. No cases for the past two years in northern Nigeria anymore. Four cases in north-west Pakistan and sixteen cases in the east of Afghanistan. This remains the only region in the world where vaccination still faces challenges. Last year's RI President met with Taliban leaders to ask for one day dedicated to no fighting so that UNICEF & Rotary teams could vaccinate, and they agreed. We are so very close to eliminating a disease which crippled and killed so many people around the world 60-70 years ago. The Rotarians around the world are the largest donors towards the vaccination campaign together with the Bill Gates Foundation.

Working on new generations of young professionals to embrace the work Rotary Clubs around the world work on. And many of the new members come from more and more diverse communities which is fantastic to see. Thank you Barry for coming to Niagara and giving the folks here some nice compliments and extra motivation. The Rotarians are a dedicated group of people who have an interest to make their community better and who support such activities also around the world....

Training groups from China

During October and November we are hosting five different training groups from China at Seneca. This week a group who train students in China for professions in the Broadcasting sector. One of our professor worked for 30 years at the CVT News Desk and developed their digital media strategy. He now teaches at Seneca to the next generation of media professionals. He did the session today together with a recent graduate from Seneca who has specialized in digital media. She stopped her studies (Psychology) at a University in Toronto to complete a two year specialized diploma in this field at Seneca. The visitors from China were fascinated by the approach used at Seneca.