SICWO is delighted to have presented Our Soroptimist Live Your Dream Awards to five very deserving and appreciative women studying in Manitoba and the Yukon, thanks to funding from the Soroptimist Foundation of Canada. We honoured them on a virtual event on International Women’s Day, with guests including members from ourWelsh Friendship Link Club, SI Bridgend and District.
First place recipient of SICWO club’s ‘Live Your Dream: Education and Training Award for Women’ is Joanna C, a single mother who is studying to be a Social Worker with the passionate goal of helping others rise above their challenging past as she has. Services that she will have the skills to provide are very much needed in her northern community.
Other very deserving recipients include Arlie Chatelain who, determined to fulfill her childhood dream of a career in nursing after dropping out of school at 15 and facing several devastating obstacles, successfully completed two years of studies many years later to obtain a mature student high school diploma with excellent grades and the prerequisites to be accepted into a baccalaureate degree nursing programme. Now near the end of year two, she expects to graduate in November 2027 and nurse in her rural community before pursuing becoming a Nurse Practitioner to help people ‘in a deeper way, through diagnosis and more complex treatment’. A strong patient advocate, Arlie is passionate to help vulnerable patients who face barriers as she has, make them feel safe, and provide a service not available in rural areas. Receiving this Award will help Arlie complete her nursing studies while as a resilient single mother, be a nurturing and strong role model for her preschool child.
‘Macy K is a resilient Meti woman who is studying Early Childhood Education with the career goal of becoming a supervisor and eventually a Director of a Childcare Centre. A dedicated mother of a one- year- old who is ‘the center of her life’, she balances parenting, working, and studying. Macy has a long commute to school. This Award will help relieve some of her financial pressures and give her more precious time to spend with her little daughter.’
‘Taylor-Marie Wood is balancing work and parenting while studying towards a baccalaureate Honours Degree in Sociology at the University of Manitoba to be completed by December 2027. She wants to gain the knowledge and skills to be able to research and find the causes of social issues, understand theories behind social issues, and create new policies. She aspires to further studies for a master’s degree in human rights, hoping to have the opportunity to influence policy at the government level or assist in creating new laws that improve the lives of disadvantaged people for whom she is passionate to help and build a better future and to remove the stigma of mental health issues. Meanwhile she is a hard- working mature student, excelling in her studies, and determined to be a positive role-model for her children and a loving parent.
