Erick Mbianda wasn’t planning to attend university this past year because his family in Cameroon couldn’t afford to send him.
They had endured a decade of disruption due to the armed conflict that began in 2016, forcing them from their home in the northwest to the more centrally located capital Yaoundé.
Then Mbianda received an email from the University of New Brunswick offering him a scholarship through the River Philip Foundation and the PS43 Foundation, operated by fellow Cameroonian and former Toronto Raptors star Pascal Siakam, who’s now playing with the Indiana Pacers in the NBA Finals against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
“I pray I can meet him one day to thank him. It was a life-changer,” Mbianda said. “My dad wasn’t in the country when I got the news. I called him and he started crying, saying, ‘God bless Pascal Siakam’ over and over again.”
Last fall, Mbianda arrived at UNB to study chemical engineering on an $8,000 entrance scholarship. He is the second Cameroonian student to receive the scholarship since the program began in 2023.
Cedrick Tahmo, the first recipient, is now entering his fourth year studying computer science. At the time, UNB flew him to Toronto to meet Siakam on the court after a Raptors game.
“After they won the game, they told us to wait on the court for him to come out. Just seeing him was just so amazing,” Tahmo said.
“He is a great guy, he was very chill. We have a colloquial language in my country. It’s like a modified English or French. He spoke that with me and it was just an amazing experience. Just seeing someone at that level who still holds tight to his roots was so amazing for me to see.”
Tahmo says Siakam made him feel like he wasn’t alone in his experience of building a life in a new country.
“He told me he came here as a student as well,” said Tahmo. “He knows my struggles. He knows how it is to be in a different country without your family around. Just sharing that experience with me made me realize that I’m not alone here.”
The partnership between UNB and Siakam’s foundation began after a meeting in Toronto between Siakam and Frank McKenna, deputy chair of TD Bank and a former New Brunswick premier.
“Frank had heard about his passion for education and particularly the digital [skills component],” said Adrienne Oldford, the executive director of the McKenna Institute.
“So they met for lunch and really found they had this shared connection to make a difference.”
Oldford said the scholarship could be a first step in a broader partnership. The McKenna Institute has committed $1.3 million to digital education programs in New Brunswick schools.
The PS43 Foundation, based in Ontario, runs programs like Coding for Champions, which provides digital literacy and technology training for under-served youth, said executive director Dakota Whyte.
“[Our] mission is all around advancing youth education,” she said. “We do this through the lens of digital technology, STEAM learning [science, technology, engineering, art and math], life skills and mentorship for underrepresented and marginalized groups.”
Siakam’s foundation has remained based in Ontario even after he left Toronto in a trade to the Pacers shortly after the UNB partnership was announced.
Vanessa Siakam is his sister and manager of programs with PS43. She said their father, who died in 2014, always told them education was important, even as her brother pursued his dream to be a basketball player.
“We’re all driven by education because that was the only speech that my father would give you every day,” she said. “That was the main inspiration [for the foundation]. We knew he loved everything about education.”
PS43 has two core programs that have educational and sport components — an annual basketball camp in Cameroon where they’re also taught lessons in leadership, resilience and personal growth, and a program in Canada called Data Dunkers where students in grades 5 through 12 learn data science skills through studying and analyzing basketball statistics.
“Our father loved sport and the fact that Pascal was drafted in the NBA and my father wasn’t able to witness that dream of his, I think it’s just a normal thing for Pascal to join everything that he loved,” Vanessa said.
“We’re going to help [realize] my father’s dream since he wasn’t there to experience it.”
Whyte said Siakam was well supported as he pursued his dreams through programs like Basketball Without Borders, so it’s natural for him to want to support others.
“We look at Erick and we look at Cedrick and we want to feel a part of their development of anything that they are able to achieve,” Whyte said. “It has started off with one opportunity and hopefully Pascal could be an inspiration to them that they can make any of their dreams happen.”
Mbianda is studying chemical engineering and his dream is to return to Cameroon and help the country move from fossil fuels to renewables like solar power, which can also help people suffering from “energy poverty” in rural areas that aren’t connected to existing power grids.
“We have the potential,” Mbianda said. “I feel like it’s our role, it’s up to our generation to try to change things.”
