Monsef to award a lifetime achievement award at gala

Status of Women Minister Maryam Monsef said she will be offering a lifetime achievement award at a gala she is hosting later this month to honour local women’s outstanding community work.

On Oct. 27, the Peterborough-Kawartha MP will be presenting the first Peterborough-Kawartha Women’s Leadership Awards.

This public event at Showplace will feature a red carpet photo session, live music and an award ceremony.

Awards will be handed out to highlight women’s achievement in areas such as entrepreneurship, environmental stewardship, and work toward combatting poverty.

But Monsef said in an interview with The Examiner on Friday that she’s also planning a lifetime achievement award.

She didn’t say who’s going to win — that was left as a surprise for the gala.

Monsef said she was inspired to start her award program by the women she knows in her riding who’ve been mentors and volunteers, steadily building the community with little recognition.

“There are thousands of women in this community who are quietly — behind the scenes, for years! — making a world of difference,” she said.

The call for nominations went out in March, at Monsef ’s Rural Women’s Summit in Buckhorn.

Monsef hasn’t released the list of nominees – that is also being kept under wraps until Oct. 27.

But some women have mentioned on social media that they’re nominees: marketing educator Sofie Andreou, Kawartha Now publisher Jeannine Taylor and Innovation Cluster marketing manager Rose Terry, for example.

Monsef was in Peterborough on International Day of the Girl on Thursday.

She said she marked the occasion with a town-hall meeting at Westmount Public School with girls and boys, as well as another meeting with a group of students in Grades 10 through 12 at Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School.

Later in the boardroom at her constituency office, she invited a group of 10 girls – aged six through 14 – to come to an informal round-table.

“They wanted to get right down to the business of talking about what it means to be a girl, and what we can do together for girls and boys,” Monsef said.

“One of the themes that emerged was that this is the most powerful generation of girls to have ever lived. They have great

ideas and they get things done. And they have a lot of confidence – we need to further support them.”

The Women’s Leadership Awards gala will be held Oct. 27 at Showplace Performance Centre on George St. N. in downtown Peterborough at 7:30 p.m.