When Joanne Cave turned 12, she began to notice things around her— low self-esteem, eating disorders, obsession with beauty— all things most 12-year-olds notice.
But unlike most 12-year-olds, she decided to found a feminist organization to change it.
Her work in the non-profit sector is one of the reasons Cave is one of 11 Canadian students awarded a Rhodes Scholarship this year.
The scholarship provides her with free tuition for two years at Oxford University, as well as a stipend to cover her living expenses.
Rhodes is awarded to 84 students from British Commonwealth countries. Students are required to be well-rounded and excel in academics, athletics, and service to their communities.
Cave’s non-profit organization was created to engage and empower girls, calling it Ophelia’s Voice.
Cave spent five years at the organization “promoting girls’ leadership, helping girls work on social justice projects, doing a lot of workshops in schools,” she said.
“It really changed how I think about gender issues, and social justice policies, and what I might want to do in the future,” she said.
Cave had to stop her work at Ophelia’s Voice when she graduated high school and enrolled at the University of Toronto, where she is now in her fourth-year degree in women’s and gender studies.
She continues to volunteer in the non-profit sector, sitting on the board of Frontline Partners of Youth Network to help battle oppression of different youth groups, but her biggest project is still in the planning stages— she wants to start “a network of young professionals who work in the non-profit sector who want to start thinking about the future,” she said.
Cave is an obvious choice for a Rhodes scholarship because she is “smart, driven, and she really cares,” said Franca Gucciardi, the director of a the Canadian Merit Scholarship Foundation.
Gucciardi met Cave when she was a high school student applying for one of her scholarships, and said Cave really struck her as unusually aware of social problems for a girl her age.
Cave said hearing her mentor suggest she should apply for the Rhodes really “put it on the radar” for her.
She completed the “grueling” application for the scholarship, which demanded six reference letters and a flight to Saskatoon for an interview, without being sure whether she stood a chance, she said.
On Nov. 25 she was woken up by a phone call at 3 a.m. The chair of the committee told her she got the scholarship.
Her initial reaction was “complete disbelief.”
“Just to realize that it’s over and I need to start making plans for school next year and for my future, it’s pretty fantastic,” she said.
She leaves for Oxford next October, where she will do a masters in comparative social policy, and is excited to be in an “unparalleled” intellectual environment, she said.
“I’m really looking forward to be around some really inspiring and fascinating people. It’s going to be a lot of fun,” she said.
She said she hopes to take what she learns at Oxford to work in social policy, work in the non-profit sector, or even run for office.
“I really hope she gets involved with politics,” Gucciardi said.
“I don’t really see myself as an academic for too long. I think I’d miss being engaged in the community,” Cave said.
