Chab Dai News!

We are excited to announce that we now have a bank account in Chab Dai Canada's name!! Although we can't issue tax receipts until our charitable status has gone through at Revenue Canada, we can now at least receive funds in Chab Dai's name! We've decided for the time being that everything we receive (unless specifically otherwise indicated by the donor) will be divided 50/50 between Chab Dai Canada and Chab Dai Cambodia. When we start more fundraising and plan projects that will require specific funding, we may review this, but for now we feel sending the money to Cambodia is a good use of our office here.

In other Chab Dai news, yesterday we attended the premiere of a new Canadian documentary called Avenue Zéro, about human trafficking in Canada. The viewing was followed by a Q&A session with six experts, from police officers to community activists, as well as the documentary director. Both the movie and discussion afterward were excellent. I would definitely recommend seeing the movie, it gives quite a good overview of the phenomenon here in Canada from a human rights perspective.

It's playing at Ciné-Robotique (the ONF) on the corner of St. Denis and de Maisonneuve, every day at 19h00 from today until January 31. The address is 1564 rue St. Denis.

The documenary website is: http://avenuezero.ca/

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, friends!

A new year and we're back up on our blog. We took a short break, due to the end-of-semester and December craziness, but we're back to feeling completely motivated and organised, as so many Januaries have before!

We had a wonderful Christmas in Winnipeg, saw lots of family and friends, and found the trip very relaxing overall.

This past weekend we both went down to the States for my first class weekend of the semester and spent a day in Vermont on our way down. Montpelier is a very cute little town with many bookstores and craft shops and some good restaurants to choose from. We chose McGillicuddy's Irish Pub, where I had the most delicious veggie burger I've ever tasted, but also happened to be where the Senate candidate was having a shin-dig, so it was pretty crowded.

Here we are in front of Montpelier's court house... for lack of another "notable" landmark.

We also stopped in Waterbury to visit the Ben & Jerry's ice cream factory and got a factory tour.

It was delicious.

It was a busy first weekend, but I am so excited about this semester. In Project Planning, we're moving forward from research to design, and enter the wonderful world of logframes!! They can be pretty tough, but I've done them before, so here's hoping it isn't too difficult. I'm also taking a Gender in CED elective with my fabulous academic advisor. This week, a main focus will be on passing a waiver exam to get out of taking Economics in CED, which looks like a repeat of the Economics courses I took in undergrad, so I'm really hoping I can pass the test.

Charlie spent the weekend driving me to and from campus, meeting me for lunch, napping, reading, and watching much basketball. He was also very happy when I introduced him to Hart's Turkey Farm Restaurant, which is attached to the hotel I stay at every month.

I hope to write more about Chab Dai Canada's progress more in the coming weeks. Charlie plans to make a guest appearance very soon as well. Keep in touch!