Marge Reitsma-Street - 2009 winner of the National Dick Weiler Award
Marge Reitsma-Street, MSW, PhD
Professor, Studies in Policy and Practice
University of Victoria
Social worker, professor, researcher, and activist academic Dr. Marge Reitsma-Street has brought the academy and community together since the 1970s to change juvenile justice policies; to put poverty on the agenda of the community, province and nation; to address change punitive welfare laws; and to envision models of affordable housing and ways to value women’s unpaid work. Marge has excelled in the usual credentials of a highly respected academic in funded research and visiting scholar positions in the U.K. and Australia. She has contributed over 200 publications and presentations to academic, professional, and popular venues, including case studies of successful social justice struggles and the development of alternative community organizations and research methodologies. Marge has reached local media, national and international audiences through her collaborative community research, her teaching, her writing, and her speaking. To quote from the nomination material, “Marge inspired not only the students she teaches, but also colleagues, students and others who read her work and see her lasting contribution to social justice and social development in each of the four cities where she has lived--Hamilton, North Bay, Sudbury, and Victoria.”
The award will be presented to Marge Reitsma-Street and to fellow award winner, Gilles Seguin, webmaster of the popular and influential weekly Canadian Social Research Newsletter, later this fall in Toronto. The Weiler Award is presented annually to acknowledge and honour exceptional contributions to community and social development in Canada. The award recognizes outstanding dedication by individuals, groups or organisations to social development/social justice causes through co-operative linkages and collaboration among individuals, groups, agencies and organisations. Previous award winners include: The Crime Prevention Committee of the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs, 2008, Vancouver Social and Research Planning Council Director Michael Goldberg, 2005, B.C. Judge Linton John Smith, 2001, and The Centre for Literacy of Quebec, 2000.
Marge as member of the Sudbury Better Beginnings, Better Futures Research Demonstration Project 1992
Marge and three graduates in Studies in Policy and Practice, University of Victoria, 2008