On November 4th, Mohamed Islam, 31, was awarded with Crime Prevention Ottawa's 2013 Youth Worker Award in a ceremony at City Hall. Crime Prevention Ottawa (CPO) is an organization which aims to reduce crime and enhance community safety through collaborative evidence-based crime prevention strategies. Mohamed Islam is a Youth Worker with the Boys and Girls Club of Ottawa and is the coordinator of the Somali Youth Support Project, a program run out of the Pinecrest-Queensway Community Health Centre.

This summer I was blessed to get an eight-week summer job placement with Sadaqa Food Bank as the media/events coordinator, and it reminded me of how important it was to help other people. With a half-finished undergraduate degree in human rights, I have realized that theorizing about poverty will not solve anything.