UOIT Collaborative Leadership students raise $650 for HIV/AIDS orphans in Africa

Students enrolled in the Collaborative Leadership course at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology’s (UOIT) Faculty of Business and Information Technology (FBIT) directed their creativity and teamwork skills toward raising $650 for HIV/AIDS orphans in Lesotho, Africa this past summer.

This is the second year Dr. Rob Elkington, Sessional Lecturer, FBIT has presented his students with this fundraising challenge. After dividing his class of 75 into five teams, he gave each team $20 and gave them the task of growing the money as much as they could within two weeks by working together. Collectively, the teams more than tripled their funds, beating last year’s total of $560.

To raise funds, the students held bake sales, raffles, sports and youth outreach events; sold art pieces and red-ribbon pins; and collected donations. The money went to Bracelet of Hope, a Canadian charity that works with grassroots groups in Lesotho and other African countries to fight HIV and AIDS. Earlier in the year, the students had the opportunity to hear about leadership challenges and successes from guest speaker Dr. Anne-Marie Zajdlik, the charity’s founder.

“This project was one of the most effective ways to put leadership theories we have developed over the past few months into practice,” said Priyana Govindarajah, a third-year Communications student. “Although some groups encountered setbacks, we learned how to maneuver through any issues we faced. The Bracelet of Hope fundraiser was a great opportunity to work with leaders with different skill sets, from different academic backgrounds, to achieve a common goal for a great cause.”

According to Dr. Elkington, the goal of the project was to engage the students in the Team Leadership model, which emphasizes:

• Servant leadership, through care for the underprivileged in the community, such as AIDS orphans.
• Transformational leadership, by aligning values and growing as individuals, especially with moral capacity.
• Team leadership, by serving as monitors and facilitators to resolve internal and external team challenges.

“This was an excellent opportunity see the content of the Collaborative Leadership course in action,” said fourth-year Commerce student Bryan Barclay. “We all came to the table with different ideas and were ultimately successful in achieving something great. It was a wonderful experience and I encourage any students taking Collaborative Leadership to continue doing this in the future.”