Young people collect Duke of Edinburgh Awards

Here and Now column by Dan Hilborn
Published Jan. 14, 2004


Several young Burnaby residents were recipients of the Duke of Edinburgh's Bronze Award and Certificate of Achievement in a ceremony at the Ismaili Jamathkhana and Centre in Burnaby last month.

Annie Chu of the 11th South West Burnaby Venturer Company, Angela and Brenton Lugrin of Ismaili Youth Group I and independent youth Travis Wong all received the awards, which recognize outstanding achievement on the part of young people.

The Duke of Edinburgh's Award is an international program for youth aged 14 to 25 who participate in community service, expeditions, skills and fitness. Offered in more than 100 countries around the world, a total of 35,000 young Canadians have participated.

Also at the ceremony was 15-year-old Khalil Lakhani, the young man from the 8th Northview Venturer Company who received his Duke of Edinburgh Award just prior to his widely publicized and heroic rescue of a five-year-old girl and two adults from an overturned pleasure boat on Green Lake in Seattle last summer.

SFU STUDENTS EARN $5,000 FORESTRY AWARDS

Gifted graduate students from Simon Fraser University and UBC have each received $5,000 graduate student awards from the Canadian Forest Service's Pacific Forestry Centre in Victoria.

SFU's Grace Sumampong is investigating the genetic diversity of salmonberry and its relative susceptibility to potential biological control agents, while fellow SFU student Marcela Olguin-Alvarez, supervised by Canadian forest researcher Werner Kurz, is focusing on forest management and carbon dynamic assessment in a mixed pine-oak forest in Central Mexico.

And if this all sounds like a lot of unintelligible timber talk to you, check out the awards details at the forest centre's website at pfc.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/award.