HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2007-11-08, Page 6It’s the tale of a Canadian
engineer in Ghana with a
former Blyth area boy as the
star.
Dane Corneil is currently
working with Ghana’s
ministry of food and
agriculture in the upper east
region of Ghana through the
program Engineers Without
Borders.
Corneil is 21 years old, an
engineering student at the
University of Waterloo and
has been working in Ghana
since mid-August.
After being selected from
hundreds of applicants,
Corneil was trained and
prepared for his trip
and his pending job
placement in May.
Corneil’s title is Junior
Fellow. Junior Fellows are
university students from
across Canada who spend
four months on volunteer
placements in developing
countries through the
Engineers Without Borders
program.
The program is known to
help students in the
workforce, providing worldly
experience in their field.
Through his on-line
journal, or blog, Corneil has
detailed the experiences he
has had through work and life
in a foreign country.
Corneil is currently
working on a crop
profitability report in Ghana.
Corneil landed in Accra,
Ghana’s capital, in mid-
August and in his blog, he
said he was struck by the
humidity and the activity of
the area. Shortly after landing
he took a 13-hour bus trip to
Tamale where he met up with
other people from the
program.
Shortly after his trip to
Tamale, Corneil headed to
Navrongo, to meet with the
district director at his new
office for the first time. After
his meeting, Corneil settled in
Bolgatanga for a few days,
staying with a family that his
director convinced to take
him in.
His director, Sarah Lewis,
helped to settle him in. Lewis,
who is a long-term volunteer
with Engineers Without
Borders in Ghana, has been
there for seven months now
and also works with the
ministry of food and
agriculture, and she also
attended the University of
Guelph.
Lewis sent Corneil on a
mission through the streets
that would get him talking
to Ghanaians. She sent
him out to ask the ques-
tion, “Why do you think there
are more boys attending
school in Ghana that there are
girls?”
Corneil got interesting
answers and learned about the
culture as he worked up the
courage to talk to more and
more people.
While Corneil was there,
the upper-east region of
Ghana was experiencing its
worst floods in 15 years, with
many of the traditional clay
houses buckling under the
pressure of the heavy rains.
Assessing the damage and
loss was one of the tasks that
the ministry had to work on.
Corneil’s work took him to
the Tono Dam, the largest in
the district, which spans two
kilometres. This is one of
many dams in Ghana,
something the region has to
do to combat the
long dry season that starts
every October.
More recently in his blog,
Corneil lamented about the
lack of anonymity he has in
Ghana, as he tends to stick out
in the villages.
However, after a fact-
finding trip brought him to
Chuchuliga, he was accepted
by several local women and
jokingly associated with the
local MP; something all the
locals had a good laugh
about.
PAGE 6. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2007.New neighbours with goodintentions have made theirway into the area in the formof Marcus and Tara Rayner.
Tara Rayner, owner of Pro-
Tek Sandblasting and
Painting, says that her move
to Londesborough is a
permanent one and that she
has no intentions of moving,
only expanding.
“This is permanent, this is
where we want to be,” she
said. “We want to expand, we
want to keep getting bigger.
There’s going to be no one
bigger in the area.”
Marcus Rayner, Tara’s
husband, does all the painting
and has been in this line of
work his whole life. The
couple has followed the work
from Oshawa, Ontario, to
Alberta for a while, to
Wingham and now finally
into Londesborough.
After a year in Wingham,
they decided to move south to
Londesborough. With a
bigger facility now, Pro-Tek
hopes to concentrate on truckpainting in their future plans.He says that one of theirbiggest clients, MernerContracting, played a big partin the move to the area,helping them along and was a
big factor in them moving
into their current space.
In addition to their closer
proximity to many of their
major clients, their new
building, which is just onto
Anthony’s Line, greeting
drivers as they enter Londes-
borough coming south from
Blyth, is a much bigger space
than they were working with
before, accommo-dating more
work, with room to grow.
He says that Pro-Tek
currently sits with the biggest
local space in the business
and he hopes to add more
shelters to the land to
accommodate more and more
as business allows it.
“Right now we have all the
right contracts. The contracts
are all there, it’s just a matter
of time,” he said.
Over time, the Rayners
hope to expand far enough
that they can provide jobs tothe people of Londes-boroughand give back to thecommunity, and both thinkthe foundation is alreadybuilt.“We’re at least 20 per cent
cheaper than the closest
competition, and our quality
is far above them, at least
that’s what I’ve been told,” he
says.
While Tara and Marcus
have no previous links to
Huron County; Tara is from
Cobourg, Ontario and Marcus
is originally from Germany;
they both say they have
always been drawn to the
area, and it’s no surprise that
they’ve ended up here.
They now live in Blyth with
their two children 13-year-old
Taylor and nine-year-old
Jordan.
As far as future plans, the
couple plans to paint their car
into “advertising on wheels”
with a planned paint job that
Tara says will be “over the
top”.
It will be seen riding around
town shortly.
New business opens in Londesborough
Welcome
Tara Rayner, proud owner of Pro-Tek Sandblasting and Painting in
Londesborough, is pictured with a grader recently repainted there. Rayner
and her husband Marcus just recently moved into the neighbourhood from
Wingham and before that, Oshawa. The Rayners reside in Blyth with their
two children Jordan and Taylor. (Shawn Loughlin photo)
Local student overseas working in Ghana
To find out more about offering high school students work experience contact the
Foundation for Enriching Education Perth Huron
at 519-527-0111 ext 231 or visit www.foundationforeducation.on.ca
Training students today creates a pool of
skilled workers for tomorrow
Sponsored by the Ontario Learning Partnership Group and the Provincial Partnership Council
Supported by The Ontario Ministry of Education and The Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities
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By Shawn LoughlinThe Citizen