Susie Smith Memorial Prize
Oxfam has established a prize to honour the life and work of Susie Smith who died in June 2006.
Susie touched the lives of many people around the world in her 30-year career with Oxfam. In her later years with Oxfam, Susie championed the cause of HIV and AIDS and pioneered new approaches to tackling the pandemic.
With this prize, Oxfam wants to acknowledge and build on Susie’s deep sense of justice and commitment to sub-Saharan African and her incredible talent and determination to challenge traditional thinking – especially about HIV and AIDS - wherever she found it.
The winner
Oxfam is happy to announce that the £3000 prize money will be awarded to YouthNet and Counselling, an NGO in Malawi, for their work on the submission "Young Malawians on the interaction between mental health and HIV/AIDS" (87KB pdf) submitted by Jerome Wright, Fred Lubben, and Mac Bain Mkandawire. It is the hope of Oxfam GB and of the judging panel that this money will be helpful in driving further research and work.
More about the work of YouthNet and Counselling can be found at http://www.yoneco.org.mw/index.htm.
About the prize
The Susie Smith memorial prize of £3000 was awarded to YONECO on 14 August in Lilongwe, Malawi. Kaunda, the first president of Zambia, took part in the ceremony, along with Barbara Stocking (CEO of Oxfam GB) and Sarah Lane Smith, Susie Smith's daughter.
The prize criteria were that the winning piece be a published piece of work in English on HIV and AIDS from sub-Saharan Africa of up to 10,000 words.
Read local articles written about the ceremony:
- Report from The Daily Times (166KB pdf)
- Report from The Nation (249KB pdf)
More about Susie Smith
- The Guardian (1.7MB pdf)
- The Gazette (505KB pdf)
- The Financial Times (283KB pdf)
More about the panel
Ms. Ann Grant worked with Voluntary Services Overseas in Uganda, before studying International Relations and African Studies at Sussex University (1967-70) and at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London (1970-71). From 1971 – 1989 she worked in the Foreign Office at which point she resigned from the Foreign Office to work with Oxfam, the UK’s largest development and campaigning charity, as its Communications Director. She returned to the FCO and worked on African issues, first as Head of Department in 1996 and then as Director for Africa and the Commonwealth from 1998-2000. She was British High Commissioner to South Africa from 2000-2005, and joined Standard Chartered Bank as Vice Chairman (Standard Chartered Capital Markets Ltd) in June 2005.
Michael Holman, a journalist and a novelist, was brought up in Zimbabwe. He worked for the Financial Times first as an Africa correspondent from Zambia and, from 1984-2002, as the Africa editor.
Dr. Kevin Watkins was appointed as Director of the Human Development Report Office (HDRO) in August 2004. Kevin joined the HDRO after serving 13 years with Oxfam UK, most recently as Head of Research. During his years there, Dr Watkins helped make Oxfam an influential voice on issues such as trade, globalisation and human poverty, shaping public discourse through its various publications. He also managed the team behind Oxfam's campaign on education and trade advocacy.
Sarah Lane Smith is Susie Smith’s daughter.
Martin Kalungu-Banda works as Global Leadership Advisor for Oxfam GB’s Global Centre of Learning on HIV and AIDS. He is based in Oxford, UK.
