| Rotary World Peace Scholarship for the 2009/11 |
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| Posted on Dec 25 2008 |
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Rachel Yordy has been selected to receive the Rotary World Peace Scholarship for the 2009/11 school year. Her selection is quite an accomplishment considering that there are only 36 positions available each year for this scholarship. She was selected from among applicants from 186 Rotary Districts around the world.
She will begin her studies in the fall of 2009 at Bradford University in England. Her sponsoring club is the Rotary Club of Waterloo. I have been trying to get her out to visit some Rotary clubs in the Waterloo area. However, she is leaving to work in Egypt in January, prior to beginning her studies next fall.
Rachel Yordy
Hello Rotarians! My name is Rachel Yordy and I am from - in the words of my favourite history teacher - the 'little hamlet' of Elmira. Thanks to the incredible support of my local club (Waterloo), you folks at district 7080, and Rotary International, I have recently been awarded a Rotary World Peace Fellowship to pursue graduate studies at the University of Bradford next September. Fred Sweeney suggested I introduce myself to you and tell you a bit about what I'm up to until I move to the UK, so here we go.
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I graduated from Trent University in June 2006 with a BA in International Development and minor in Peace and Conflict Studies. I chose this program because I was interested in a critical education that would help me to understand the complex causes of inequality and conflict in the world and to discern how to address injustice and build peace through my work, relationships and life. While in university, I participated in a year abroad program in Ghana, where I supplemented theoretical development studies with a four-month internship at the West African Dispute Resolution Centre (WADREC). Thus a passion to work at the nexus of development and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa was enkindled.
During my undergraduate years a desire to support positive change in the world led me to volunteer summers at an orphanage in Haiti, a literacy NGO in Uganda, and a youth leadership program in the Czech Republic and United States. During the academic years I was involved in world affairs organizing committees, a model united nations seminar, and the local World University Service of Canada committee at Trent.
Since university I been employed as a Project Leader with Katimavik in BC, and now, as a Child Rights Research Associate in a Canadian-funded Development project in Egypt. Our "Promoting and Protecting the Interests of Children who Work" project (PPIC-Work for short) partners with microfinance institutions to provide loans to small business owners on the condition that they make things better for their child workers: improving workplace safety, implementing a code of conduct that protects child rights, and allowing their children to participate in our non-formal educational programming. I have been with PPIC-Work for over a year now, and will continue with the project on a very part-time basis until it wraps up in June 2009.
In early January I will begin a small consulting assignment with a Swiss child protection NGO in Egypt, helping them to develop a participatory assessment for their programming with working children in the Nile delta. This assessment will be used to shape their interventions to enhance enterprise-based learning in the furniture industry. At the end of next month, I will also begin to work with Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA), an organization that provides legal aid and psychosocial support for asylum seekers and refugees in Egypt. As a member of the psychosocial team I will help individuals to access educational programming, health services, emergency resources, and psychological support; and contribute to capacity building initiatives for community-based organizations operating in refugee communities. Most refugees in Egypt are from sub-Saharan Africa. I see this job as a first step on the peace-building path I have felt led to since Ghana.
