NEWS RELEASE
VIMY FOUNDATION
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A local student has won a prestigious international award from the Vimy Foundation, a Canadian charity, to travel to historical sites in Europe: the Beaverbrook Vimy Prize.
From hundreds of applicants across Canada, the UK and France, a Grade 10 student from Orillia, Andréa Jackson, who attends Nouvelle-Alliance Catholic High School in Barrie, was selected to participate in this flagship scholarship program.
The Beaverbrook Vimy Prize consists of a fully funded, two-week educational program in France, and Belgium to study the intertwined history of our countries during the First and Second World Wars.
Scheduled for Aug. 7-20, 2019, these 16 outstanding students (from Canada, the UK, and France) will attend intimate history lectures, pay their respects at the stunning Canadian National Vimy Memorial, learn from experts at Ypres, Passchendaele, and Beaumont Hamel, walk along Juno Beach and other key sites in Normandy, and participate in unique commemoration ceremonies at the Menin Gate (First World War) and at Dieppe (Second World War).
In addition, the participants in the Beaverbrook Vimy Prize program for 2019 have a unique opportunity to visit many of the sites of the First World War a century after the signing of the 1919 Versailles peace treaty.
The Canadian Corps’ accomplishments from Aug. 8 to Nov. 11, 1918 were truly impressive, though incredibly costly—when the Allies planned the offensives that would ultimately win the war, Canada’s soldiers were given the responsibility of being at the forefront of the attacks. Beaverbrook Vimy Prize students will be visiting many of the key locations from the Last 100 Days campaign, including Amiens, Cambrai, and Mons.
We no longer have any veterans of the First World War still with us: we have lost that direct connection with their stories - of the tragedy of war, of the reasons why they enlisted to fight, of the impact of the war on them, their families, and their countries.
There are no more living links to the First World War, so this is why the Beaverbrook Vimy Prize program exists, to keep their legacy alive by engaging today’s youth in discovering more about our shared past.
Proud Franco-Ontarian Andréa Jackson is an advocate for social media awareness and also trains young hockey players when she’s not too busy with her duties as a library assistant.
A member of the Franco-Ontarian Youth Mock-Parliament, she is a part of the theatre program at l’École Secondaire Catholique Nouvelle Alliance. Her French skills will doubtless be put to good use when the Beaverbrook Vimy Prize takes her on an educational journey through France and Belgium.
The Vimy Foundation is a charitable organization whose mission is to preserve and promote Canada’s First World War legacy, best symbolized with the victory at Vimy Ridge in April 1917.
This trip is supported by the Beaverbrook Canadian Foundation. For more information about the Vimy Foundation and the Beaverbrook Vimy Prize, please visit our website.
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