[lorend]

OUSA Blue Chair Week

Currently, many of Ontario’s best and brightest cannot attend university due to financial,

cultural, geographic, motivational or informational barriers. Given that within the next 10 years, 70 per cent of jobs will require some form of post-secondary education or training, the time to act is now.

In recognition of these challenges, from March 2nd to 6th, campuses across Ontario will be jam-packed with empty blue chairs as part of a campaign aimed at creating awareness, raising funds and taking action at reducing barriers to post-secondary education. The empty blue chairs symbolize the lost potential for our province when access is restricted.

“The Blue Chair campaign will provide everyone with the opportunity to become directly involved in our fundraising event, aimed at contributing to increasing the success and accessibility of those students who face barriers to education,” said Morganne King Wale, OUSA Campus Coordinator at McMaster University. “We will be hosting an information session all week in the McMaster University Student Centre, as well as a pub event on March 5th at Quarters, in order to raise money and to raise awareness about the barriers to higher education.”
“The funds raised by McMaster University, on behalf of OUSA, will be donated to CURE Canada’s Driven program, a variety of free, volunteer-run programs set to take place after-school, on weekends and during the summer holidays within the Hamilton community,” said Vishal Tiwari, Vice-president Education, McMaster Students Union. “This program works to help Ontario’s youth find their chair in post-secondary education.”

If you are interested in participating in the event, please contact Morganne King Wale. As well, visit the OUSA website and join the Blue Chair Campaign group on Facebook. OUSA represents the interests of more than 140,000 professional and undergraduate, full and part-time university students at seven institutions across the province.

For further information, contact:

Morganne King Wale
OUSA Campus Coordinator
[email protected]


Tammy McQueen
Communications Director of OUSA
416-341-9948

check us out on facebook too!

BLUE CHAIR WEEK @ MAC

and

Blue Chair Campaign

I hope those blue chairs aren't only used for this... and I hope they didnt cost a lot.

IMO, having the campus 'jam packed' with chairs is a little far to go for symbolism.

I'm not saying it's a bad cause... the campaign just seems so potentially wasteful.... o_O

A bunch of them were used last year... and they're handy spare chairs to have around (even though you're sitting on the symbolic student who's access has been restricted)

Well, good to know theyre used elsewhere.

Seems like kind of a funny irony to sit in one... I quite enjoy irony.

YAY chair at Compass!

LOL to represent the student who couldn't sit on top of compass because of access issues.