Western Humanitarian Awards - Contributing to a better world

By Douglas Keddy
April 14, 2011

Funded by the Office of the Vice-President (Research & International Relations), the Western Humanitarian Awards were introduced in 2010 to recognize faculty, staff and students engaged in a range of efforts directed toward improving the quality of life for individuals and groups around the world. A maximum of $5,000 may be awarded and must be used in support of humanitarian efforts as chosen by the recipient.

Preference is given to the recognition of activities undertaken by the candidates who have current or potential international impact. Individuals or groups may apply or be nominated by third parties.

“At the end of the day, it all makes sense,” says Ted Hewitt, vice-president (research & international relations). “As members of a community of discovery, learning and service, we have an inherent social responsibility to contribute to the greater world, while inspiring and training the global leaders of tomorrow.”

Maricarmen VegaRESTORING NAMES TO THE DISAPPEARED – MARICARMEN VEGA

The process of restoring a sense of humanity to those who have vanished and been ignominiously murdered may be among the most humanitarian of acts.

“To me, the very essence of humanitarianism is a respect for human dignity and human life in the face of forces that seek to strip those rights from the powerless,” says Maricarmen Vega, a bioarchaeology PhD student.

Having worked with the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) since 2006, Vega returns a degree of dignity to “Los Desparecidos” (“The Disappeared”) of Peru by identifying the remains of those who went missing during two decades of internal strife. The struggle, between successive governments and a pair of terrorist organizations during the 1980s and 1990s, led to 69,000 deaths and an estimated 8,500-15,000 disappearances.

The 2003 Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission report into these atrocities painted a picture of systematic torture, kidnapping and assassinations by all parties, but left many questions unanswered. To this day, families continue to search for justice and closure for the thousands who remain missing.

“I am particularly interested in human rights and want to apply my knowledge of bioarchaeology on behalf of the living,” Vega says.

The skills she employs during exhumations and analyses of victims of war crimes and human rights abuses allow EPAF to provide evidence for judicial prosecution. Her work allows families to recover the remains of loved ones, give them a dignified burial and gain a degree of closure. In the process, Vega sheds an important light on a dark period in Peru’s recent history.

During the past five years, she has worked with EPAF on a variety of cases, including the notable excavation of a mass grave for 123 people shot in Putis by the Peruvian army in 1984. Vega’s expertise in the analysis of children’s bones and commingled human remains enabled her to become an expert witness for the prosecution of perpetrators of the largest single massacre of the country’s armed conflict.

Given the far-reaching nature and high number of perpetrators, these cases – including one that led to the prosecution of former President Alberto Fujimori – require a high degree of courage, professionalism, sensitivity and awareness of potential dangers.

Vega’s background as a forensic anthropologist has also led her to prepare a series of manuals EPAF now uses worldwide. “They are a part of the material EPAF shares with justice and human rights organizations around the world to clarify the importance of forensic anthropologists as key contributors to the investigation of crimes against humanity,” she says. “They also guarantee ‘the right to know’ of families of the disappeared, which is one of the most important steps of grief closure in these cases.”

Vega will use the $2,500 she earned from the Western Humanitarian Award to return to Peru and continue her work with EPAF, putting faces and names to the bones of the disappeared.

Sandra SmeltzerTHE SOCIAL (JUSTICE) NETWORK – SANDRA SMELTZER

By actively engaging marginalized communities around the world, Sandra Smeltzer brings an international perspective to the classroom that transcends the traditional teaching experience and prepares students to lead as global citizens.

“I don’t think of the work I do as a job – rather, it is my life,” the Faculty of Information & Media Studies professor says. “As researchers and educators, we are rewarded by training entire classes of students who will step out into the world and make very tangible differences in the lives of others.”

Smeltzer’s research, teaching and personal commitment to others is bound by an overriding passion for social justice. “At its core, I believe humanitarianism is based on a concern for the welfare of others, and that it is my duty to promote and support this ethos in principle and in practice,” she says.

Carrying-out extensive research in Southeast Asia, Smeltzer is keenly interested in the ethics of development, implications of free trade agreements for marginalized communities and issues related to information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D).

Many of these efforts focus on civil society’s use of alternative media – including blogging and social networking – to circumvent media controls, which is an issue that has become particularly salient given the rapid pace of technological change and the role technology has played in recent revolutions in Egypt and the Middle East.

These research activities also provide unique learning opportunities for Smeltzer’s students in the media and the public interest program. As part of her broader commitment to international development, she has coordinated and supervised 15 student internships with a range of humanitarian, non-governmental and community-based organizations, primarily in Southeast Asia and East Africa.

Half of these students have partnered with Malaysia’s Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), a non-profit organization dedicated to defending marginalized communities and improving citizens’ ability to communicate. Gaining practical, on-the-ground experience, students have provided community radio training, organized advocacy campaigns, facilitated media workshops and participated in conferences that address issues related to poverty and inequity.

Other students have interned with the Western Heads East (WHE) project, which is the university community’s response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. “I think one of the most valuable lessons I learned from Sandy was to recognize that the best humanitarian act is to acknowledge another person’s humanity,” says Jackie Strecker, a former student and WHE intern.

Smeltzer also has co-ordinated more than 50 local practicum placements for her students with non-governmental, non-profit and community-based organizations ranging from the Humane Society and London Abused Women’s Centre to the Canadian Cancer Society and Unity Project for Relief and Homelessness in London.

“The goal of these placements is to provide local organizations with additional support for activities dedicated to improving the lives of a range of citizens, while also providing Western students with an opportunity to gain practical experience in the non-profit sector that complements their theoretical training in the classroom,” she says.

Smeltzer will use her $2,500 Western Humanitarian Award to fund two additional undergraduate student internships with CIJ and the Malaysian Popular Communications Centre for Human Rights.

Charles TrickHEALTHY ECOSYSTEMS, HEALTHY PEOPLE – CHARLES TRICK

Historically, medical schools have had little interest in ecological services, sustainability, population growth or economics. But to The University of Western Ontario’s Ecosystem Health Program, these factors are central to determining health outcomes.

“We often consider problems of the environment to be separate from those of human populations, but especially in areas where subsistence is so closely linked to the land, a healthy ecosystem is essential to maintaining good health,” says Charles Trick, the Beryl Ivey Chair in Ecosystem Health. “To understand the true value of ecosystem health, one needs to stand on the edge of a community in crisis.”

Through the Ecosystem Health-Africa Initiative he helped establish in 2005, Trick is doing just that.

Working with Jack Bend, Irena Creed and Regna Darnell, Trick closely examines shifting ecological factors affecting health in Kenya’s Lake Naivasha region, which has grown from 19,000 people in 1990 to more than 400,000 today. Importantly, the project partners with stakeholder groups to focus on issues deemed critical by members of the community – not by researchers from Western.

Given the rapid influx of people and industrial operations, the Naivasha region has become a source of economic wealth in the form of ecotourism, geothermal energy production and floriculture, but these benefits have not come without costs. The land is no longer as fertile; fisheries are failing; the region has witnessed an increased incidence of social diseases and HIV/AIDS.

There are also major concerns about levels of pesticides, fertilizers and metals making their way into the lake – which has become the source of all water needs and the sink to all residential and industrial wastes. These factors are clearly affecting the population’s health.

“Inhabitants rely on the lake as a direct source of drinking water and food, and it serves as the foundation of their economy and social structure. But the lake and the land around it are under siege from unsustainable use of resources, pollution and the threat of climate change,” Trick says.

While adapting ecosystem health strategies developed at Western to such challenges in Kenya, the Africa initiative has also created 10 student internships and 15 collaborative research projects with Egerton University. In the process, this partnership has built cross-cultural capacity by providing training at Western for Kenyan students that creates an understanding of healthy ecosystems and encourages a culture of responsibility to the health of their communities back home.

“The humanitarian aspect of the Africa initiative is that it is not just a ‘Band-Aid,” Trick says. “Rather, it fosters a culture of understanding of the relationships between sick ecosystems and human illness so that underprivileged individuals learn to manage their future.”

The team’s international efforts will also provide additional benefits in Canada, particularly for much-needed humanitarian initiatives within aboriginal communities.

Trick and his colleagues will use the $5,000 earned from the Western Humanitarian Award to honour the Ecosystem Health-Africa Initiative’s global vision by funding a documentary filmed by local Kenyan residents about their views of the ecosystem and their health, which will be shared around the world.

Nominees

A GLOBAL VISION – Philip Chow

Western undergraduate economics student Philip Chow  has led a 49-person trade mission to China and, upon establishing the London chapter of Global Vision, recruited more than 120 youth to join him in the first year. The organization creates partnerships with governments, businesses and educational institutions to help prepare students to contribute meaningfully to their communities.

KUBATSIRANA – “LENDING A HAND” – Edelyn Musara

Master’s of education candidate Edelyn Musara founded Helping Hands, a non-profit organization through which Canadian students and educators raise funds to provide supplies, sanitation, potable water and library resources to the children of Nhema, Zimbabwe.

PROMOTING GLOBAL HEALTH – Dr. Neil Arya

Dr. Neil Arya is founding director of the Office of Global Health within Western’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry. This initiative strives to develop socially responsible, collaborative leaders in the advancement of healthcare and health outcomes for all individuals and populations.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT – Rachel Bezner Kerr

Western geography professor Rachel Bezner Kerr is the research co-ordinator of the Soils, Food and Healthy Communities project in Malawi. She works with more than 4,000 farmers and a hospital to examine the social, environmental and medical aspects of child health and nutrition, including the relationship between HIV/AIDS-affected families and their agricultural practices.

A RESIDENT ABROAD – Kevin Fung

An otolaryngology and oncology professor in the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, cross-appointed to the Don Wright Faculty of Music, Dr. Kevin Fung has been involved in two medical missions to Honduras, where he served as a head and neck surgeon with an international team of health-care professionals. Given his experiences, he now hopes to establish a global health-funding initiative that supports other residents in their humanitarian activities.

ENGINEERING DEVELOPMENT – Lauren Hockin

Undergraduate engineering and environmental science student Lauren Hockin experienced firsthand the mission of Engineers Without Borders Canada (EWB). Spending three months in Malawi as a junior fellow in international development, the current president of Western’s EWB chapter helped implement and improve a water-monitoring tool used to increase water quality and access across the country.

REDUCING RISK OF HIV/AIDS – Eric Tenkorang

Sociology postdoctoral fellow Eric Tenkorang’s commitment to reducing HIV/AIDS among young people is immediately evident in both his research and his involvement with HIV advocacy groups and communities affected by the pandemic. A native of Ghana, Tenkorang is the president of the Tigress Youth Club in Accra – despite spending most of the year in Canada. The non-profit organization mobilizes youth for community development purposes, creates HIV awareness programs and provides social support for those affected by the disease.

EDUCATING THE WORLD – Kendra Slee

Master’s of education student Kendra Slee embraces opportunities to teach the world – at home and abroad. These teaching experiences have taken her from Peru, to spending eight months working at a school in South Korea, to instructing English at a preschool and an orphanage in Japan as part of Brock University’s Turn Around Project (TAP). The TAP creates and maintains integrated arts projects for youth, which foster and promote reciprocal exchanges to strengthen and build communities.

THE PATH HEADS EAST – Ellena Andoniou

When she first served as a Western Heads East (WHE) intern in Mwanza, Tanzania in 2006, current geography PhD candidate Ellena Andoniou had no idea she would continue to shape the project five years later. As Western’s community response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, the research and service-learning program partners with women’s groups to introduce probiotic yogurt that helps address the illness. Andoniou’s experience was so profound she has spent more than 18 months in Africa to ensure WHE’s sustainability.

ANATOMY OF GIVING – Ryan Rawski

Already committed to volunteering locally within his community, master’s of science student Ryan Rawski developed a more global outlook after participating in Western’s Alternative Spring Break program in 2009. Rawski’s team worked in a health clinic in rural Nicaragua, helping examine patients, provide vaccinations and teach children about the importance of hygiene to their health. These efforts dovetail with Rawski’s studies in clinical anatomy and longstanding experience with the Student Emergency Response Team.

PROTECTING PERSONAL DATA – Amy ter Haar

With the escalating use of mobile technologies, issues related to data collection and information dissemination are creating unique concerns for vulnerable populations in the developing world. In an effort to ensure personal data is collected fairly and legally, Amy ter Haar, a practicing lawyer and graduate student in Western’s Faculty of Law,  co-founded the Personal Data Protection Initiative, which works with NGOs and ICT4D (Information and Communication Technologies for Development) projects to develop personal data protection processes and policies.

AN OPEN HEART – Kimberly Edwards

For the past six years, Clinical psychology PhD student Kim Edwards has volunteered with Save a Child’s Heart, an Israeli initiative designed to improve training and paediatric cardiac care for children in the developing world. In her role, Edwards helps ease the transition and provide comfort to families of children who have travelled to Israel for three months to receive open heart surgery unavailable in their countries.