EXCERPTS
Local women came together to help NorQuest College raise funds for a downtown child care centre Tuesday.
Castle Downs NDP MLA Nicole Goehring also voiced her support for the project during the sixth annual 1000 Women: A Million Possibilities luncheon at the Edmonton Expo Centre.
Goehring spoke of the need to make child care more accessible and affordable for Albertans, saying it is crucial for mothers to know their children are in safe hands.
"The 1000 Women Child Care Centre is a great example of the type of facility that we hope to see more of," she said.
NorQuest is raising $1 million for the 4,850-square foot child care space inside its Singhmar Centre for Learning, which will provide care for 56 children of adult students.
NorQuest student Hawa Sheriff is a single mom with a six-year-old son who knows how hard it is to find and afford child care while attending school.
Sheriff hopes to become a social worker.
"If I don't have this opportunity for my son ... at the end of the day he might be taken away from me," she said.
"If we can have the child care centre in office, it would be the best thing. I can't even imagine how that's going to be for the single mom. It will also bring a lot of students and other people together."
The centre is scheduled to open in 2017.
-reprinted from the Edmonton Sun