UPDATE:
We need ALL of Hamilton, Ontario and Canada to Vote for Leo Johnson and help him to win this competition.
Winning this competition is very important to Leo as the grand prize is an Internship and $50,000 which will help assist Leo's programs become National. Below is a short overview of Leo Johnson, I am aware you know him, I hope we can have all of the citizens of Hamilton and across Canada to have the opportunity to know Leo and what great work he is doing within our City and be able to support him and his future.
I would like to invite you to his Community Engagement Event on Dec 13, 2008 at the Sky Dragon as part of CBC's competition Leo must hold an event and show how well he is connected with the community.
Leo has a segment on Cable 14, and will be interviewed on Jason and Jodi Morning show Monday morning Dec 8 at 7:20am. I would like everyone to help promote and advertise as well as honour this young man and his great accomplishments so far.
He has an incredible story and we would like to set up a meeting to interview Leo and reveal him to our City/country and gain their support Only he can really tell you what he has gone through in his life but I will fill you in on some of the details to give you an idea of this incredible young man!
This note does not give enough detail to Leo's incredible story you really need to meet him there is just too much to tell.
He was born in Liberia during war he was a link to reporters through his school newspaper, helping to get the word out to media of the realities people were facing. When war broke out fully in his area he had to flee for his life. At 15 years old he became separated from his family and had to find his way to safety. He ended up in a refugee camp where they have absolutely nothing but a pen basically to keep the people in. He took youth under his wing while he was there and taught them to read and simple math as most of these youth were born in refugee camps and had no education. A war broke out and Leo had to flee for his life again. On his own running through woods while bullets are flying around him he finally came to safety he made his way to another area where he was put into another refugee camp with 50,000 people! Again he befriended the youth and taught them lessons of math, spelling. He became a part of the United Nations as he was such a great leader to 20,000 youth. He was helping a single mother in the camp who had 3 young boys. He became an uncle figure to them and taught them to play soccer and kept them busy. This family was chosen randomly by the Canadian government to be able to come to Canada long story short this is how Leo came to Hamilton. It took him one month in Hamilton to see the problems that exist here and he began to work on them immediately. He has done incredible things for youth, poverty is involved with many organizations in this city and wants his programs to be used Nationally. This is the reason for him running for CBC's Canada's Next Great Prime Minister. If he wins he will get an internship and $50,000 last year he came in 8th place; this year we want him 1st!
Leo has only been in Canada for 2 1/2 years. He lived in refugee camps for eight years of his life and finally was able to contact his family two years ago. He has not seen them but is able to communicate by phone. Leo is now 25 years old.
Leo is an incredible young man who is involved deeply in our Hamilton community. He is involved with SISO, Governing council for HCCI, Executive Director for CURE Canada, CoChair on the Hamilton Youth Advisory Council, Member of Volunteer Hamilton, Member of Youth In Motion, Governing Council of I.C.A.A.(Immigrant Culture and Arts Association, Member of Youth Canadian Network, Canadian Council for Refugee's (C.C.R), Member of W.U.S.C (World Universities Services of Canada), Member of A.C.C.A, Recipient of J.C. Holland Awards for Leadership and Excellence 2007, and is presently nominated for the Lincoln Alexander Awards for Community leadership. Leo is also involved with many other groups and organizations including Fix Our World Foundation.
As part of the competition Leo must hold an event. We have set up an event at the Skydragon on KingWilliam street downtown Hamilton. I have attached an invitation for you and would like for the media to cover his event.
We would like to have a few dignitaries at this event to support Leo. Can you please help me I would like to invite Lincoln Alexander to come. I would also like to ask if you have any other suggestions as we want Leo to win this year. He is a young man with a vision as you know, he will use the internship to help his programs become National. I fully support Leo Johnson and want the City of Hamilton to embrace him and give him the support he needs to win this competition.
The only official way for Leo to win is to have people rate his video on the
CBC.CA website. Please encourage everyone to go to the site and rate his video. We would like to have 5,000 ratings by December 20, 2008.
I am contacting people as Leo has asked me to be his campaign manager. We need people to comment on his video (this is how to vote for leo) on his official site or he will not qualify for the next round of competition. We do check and respond to all of the comments on his official page to show he is committed and an active candidate. We want to have at least 5,000 people rate his Video before Dec 20. Dec 20 is the final cut off date where the decision will be made who goes to the next round of competition.
I want to see the whole City backing Leo for this competition.
If you or others have voted for him on this site it is not showing up, please ask others to check their rating as well. Please contact me if you have already made a comment on his official page and we will notify CBC of the problem. You must make an account on CBC and then rate the video. It is a secured site this is why you must register and recieve an official email from CBC before you are able to go back in and Vote for Leo. To vote go to the website below click on View Candidates select l-q Leo Johnson is the second candidate in this section. Click on his video then scroll to the bottom and rate from 1-5 stars, make a comment and click submit. It takes a short while for CBC to review the comments and then they post them. This is the only way to officially vote for Leo. Please help to forward Leo to the second round of the competiton.
Please make sure your comment is registered on this official site or it doesn't count.
Here is the official CBC link please pass it on to all of the members who are supporting Leo.
http://www.cbc.ca/nextprimeminister/candidates/leojohnson.html
I will keep you posted, and let you know if we are recieving the comments.
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Linda Lannigan
Leo Johnson's Campaign Manager
905.518.1308
www.fixourworld.ca
Together We Can Make Poverty History
