ROTARY CLUB OF LASALLE CENTENNIAL ANNOUNCES RECIPIENT OF RAJBIR MANN INTERNATIONAL SERVICE AWARD

The Rotary Club of LaSalle Centennial has announced that Mrs. Ingrid Silvaggio-Heugh is this year’s recipient of the Rajbir Mann International Service Award. The award was presented at the club’s 14th Annual Crystal Drop Gala which took place at Essex Golf and Country Club on February 18th 2023

The Rajbir Mann International Service Award is given in recognition of a resident of Essex County who demonstrates energetic and enthusiastic international volunteer service. It was created in 2016 to honour the many years of service of Rajbir (Roger) Mann, a past president and charter member of the club who was instrumental in leading over twenty-three water and sanitation projects in India, Africa, and Mexico.

This year’s recipient has an impressive record of volunteer service in Africa, specifically in Uganda where she has been a member of Save African Child Uganda Primary School organization (SACU for short) since 2012. That year, after meeting the organization’s founder, she decided to sponsor a child, one of 14 abandoned children living in the school’s shelter. Ingrid, a retired schoolteacher, subsequently made several trips to Uganda bringing her expertise in school curricula and several suitcases full of supplies. In 2017, seeing the overcrowding, she used her own funds to build a new classroom giving more of these vulnerable students the opportunity to attend school.

She has also been instrumental in raising funds to build a new clean safe well and a modern sanitary washroom with running water for hand washing on the school grounds. These replaced the only source of water – a disease ridden ditch and an unsanitary “outhouse”. These new facilities will go a long way in eliminating water borne diseases such as malaria, cholera & yellow fever which are common in the country.

At home in Amherstburg, Ingrid works hard throughout the year organizing many fundraisers to meet SACU’s budget and sharing her SACU story. Her vast community network has brought in many new sponsors for the students of SACU. It is a shared dream of Ingrid’s and the committee to provide wells in the small villages around Buwundo, to continue building resources for the students, and to work on measures to keep the students in good health, so they might break their circle of poverty, reach their full potential and have a bright future.