Carleton alumnus Carley Robb-Jackson has received this year’s Global Changemaker Award – an award which recognizes Ontario youth for contributing to global development.
Robb-Jackson was nominated for her work in Tanzania in 2008, according to a press release, and is one of five winners this year.
Her time there was spent providing “life skills, health, and governance classes to the community” in Morogoro, she said in an email.
In 2008, Robb-Jackson volunteered with an organization called Youth Challenge International (YCI), who nominated her for this year’s award. The award is given out by the Ontario Council for International Cooperation (OCIC) based on the nominations they receive from member organizations like YCI.
“Since my time in Tanzania, I have stayed engaged with YCI,” Robb-Jackson said. “I have shared my experiences to further promote awareness of key development issues, and to support YCI’s vision of youth-led volunteerism.”
The award is presented as part of International Development Week — a week-long event for organizations and individuals to share achievements in international development.
This year’s International Development Week took place Feb. 5-11 and “focused on the empowerment of women and girls,” according to the Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA’s) website.
The Global Changemaker Award has only existed for the past four years, but International Development Week has existed for over 20, said OCIC executive director Kimberly Gibbons.
“One of the activities is to recognize people but we also have events to engage the public,” Gibbons said.
The award winners had a chance to meet one another in Toronto at a two-day event. Robb-Jackson said “it was inspiring to meet the other four global changemakers and to learn about their work and what drives them.”
The work that these global changemakers have done is about more than just helping, Gibbons said.
“I don’t approach this field of work as charity but as being actively engaged in making a better world.”
After graduating with an undergraduate degree in law and sociology from Carleton, Robb-Jackson went on to receive her master’s degree in sociology and international development from the University of Guelph.
In 2009, she joined Canada’s International Development Research Centre to research “issues of women’s legal rights and access to justice,” she said.
Robb-Jackson is currently in Sierra Leone working on a project to examine these issues.
“I think her research is groundbreaking, globally,” Gibbons said.
