Kelowna's global citizen of the year

Dr. Samantha Nutt is the founder of War Child Canada, a medical doctor with more than fifteen years of experience working in war zones and founding Executive Director of War Child Canada, the latter a non-governmental organization that works in most of the world's conflict zones.

As a result of this work, Dr. Nutt will be awarded the Kelowna Global Citizen of the Year Award following her keynote presentation open to the public on Wednesday, March 9 at Okanagan College.

“Dr. Nutt is a leading example of how one person can change the world, her work fighting for the rights and providing medical care for the downtrodden is an inspiration to all.” Says event organizer, Nicole Rustad

The founding Chair of Global Citizen Week Kelowna, Nick Arkle says “We are thrilled to be able to honour Dr. Nutt with this award, she exemplifies the spirit of Global Citizen Week and we wanted to recognize that.”

On Wednesday night, Dr. Nutt who was recently named one of Canada’s 25 Transformational Canadians, will reflect on 15 years of working with women in some of the most challenging humanitarian environments.

The event falls the day after the 100th Anniversary of the International Day of the Woman and will reflect on the current status of women in war torn regions of the world.

Committed to peace, human rights and social justice, Dr. Nutt has worked in some of the world's most violent flash points with War Child Canada, the United Nations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Burundi, northern Uganda, Ethiopia and the Thai-Burmese border.

Over the course of her professional career and as the Founder and Executive Director of War Child Canada, Nutt has spearheaded efforts to provide direct humanitarian support and long term programming to war-affected children and their families, and to promote greater awareness in Canada concerning the rights of children everywhere.

Dr. Nutt’s work on behalf of war-affected communities around the world has been widely recognized.

She is a recipient of Canada’s Top 40 under 40 Award from the Globe and Mail.

She was designated by Time Magazine as one of “Canada’s Five Leading Activists” and she has also been honoured as one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women.

Most recently, Dr. Nutt received the Order of Ontario, the highest official honour in the province of Ontario.

Last year, UBC-Okanagan awarded her with an Honourary Doctorate for her work.