When many Canadians think of Mexico, sun, beach, tans and heat come to mind. But in the case of Dr. Susan Smith, there are different and more important issues that need to be addressed. Smith is one of the recipients of this year’s Arch Awards for her humanitarian services in a poverty-stricken Mexican village. Two Arch Awards are given out by the University of Calgary Alumni Association annually to honour graduates. Smith won the Distinguished Alumni Award and the Graduate of the Last Decade Award went to Robyn Hauck for her campaign against public smoking.
Smith, bachelor of nursing ’75, PhD ’95, was awarded for her selflessness. She has worked in the mexican village of Tlamacazapa–literally “people who are fearful”–for the past decade. She aided the village’s health and nutrition while working towards community rehabilitation for one of the world’s most poverty-stricken and diseased villages. Armed with volunteers, Smith founded an organization called Caminamos Juntos para Salud y Desarrollo (Walking Together for Health and Development) that targets issues of health and well-being, environment and water, community education and literacy and income generation–for women in particular. The villagers face toxic water containing harmful levels of arsenic and lead and also suffer from oppression, fear, malnutrition and violence, according to a document Smith’s organization released.
“Everyone at the reception was basically sitting there in awe of what she had done and what she’s still doing,” recalled Alumni Association past president Dean Brawn.
“Reweaving a Life,” an art exhibition organized by Smith, showcases basket weaving and other art from Tlamacazapa at the Glenbow Museum. The display depicts the hardships faced by the indigenous women of the village and the village’s main livelihood, basket weaving. The baskets symbolize the “reweaving” of the lives of the village people that inspired Smith.
Smith is not new to aid work as she previously worked in a war zone, the ices of the Arctic and for famine relief in Ethiopia before dedicating herself to Tlamacazapa. She is currently in Mexico and was unavailable for an interview.
The recipients of the Arch Awards do not receive money, but past winners received paintings or prints created by U of C fine arts graduates as a token of appreciation. This year the winners were presented with sculptures produced by U of C fine arts graduates.
“Essentially what we do [is] look for someone who has made a lasting and significant impact in their career,” said Brawn. “There are 130,000 alumni of the University of Calgary and only 31 of them have the distinction of being awarded the Distinguished Alumni award.”
He noted the awards are a “prestige thing” for the recipients.
Robyn Hauck won the GOLD award for her work against public smoking. She organized a petition that collected 12,000 signatures and, after lobbying city council and devising a media strategy, led Calgary to ban public smoking in 2007–a year earlier than planned.
“I felt quite powerless when I would go out to bars because there were no bylaws in place [while] every other city in Canada had bylaws in place,” said Hauck.
She explained it was not an easy process and taking on city council was difficult. Her biggest challenge was to convince people that banning smoking was the right thing to do, but she had support.
“When I started petitioning, I found that so many other people felt the same way as I did,” said Hauck. “Then it just fuelled me to push forward. I had an instructor at the U of C that really inspired me to start this campaign and taking his class was the reason why I started this campaign in the first place.”
Over the past years, the Arch Awards have awarded a variety of extraordinary individuals.
“We have awarded everything from astronauts to the inventor of JAVA to doctors and scientists, you name it,” said Brawn. “We’ve awarded for something they’ve done, something that would bring pride to the U of C alumni. It’s one of our own who has made an outstanding or significant contribution to society.”