Manitoba
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Manitoba Advanced Education and Literacy

Adult Learning and Literacy

Lieutenant Governor's Medal for Literacy Recipients

In 1990 the late Honourable George Johnson, M.D., former Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba established the Lieutenant Governor's Medal for Literacy to recognize exceptional achievement of an individual, group or project that has made a significant contribution to the field of literacy in Manitoba. The Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Literacy – Leaders in Literacy Education pays tribute to literacy practitioners, volunteers, instructors, teachers, researchers, project and programs that exhibit the highest standard of excellence, dedication, leadership, creativity, and accomplishment in the field of literacy.

In 2007 the present Lieutenant Governor, The Honourable John Harvard, established a second award category, Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Literacy – Partnership for Literacy, to recognize innovation and significant impact on literacy through partnerships. Literacy impacts on, and is the responsibility of all Manitobans. Beginning in 2008 this award category pays tribute to individuals, businesses, organizations, and groups who have championed literacy in a significant way through partnerships, but whose main focus or work is not literacy.

The 2008 Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Literacy Recipients are:

Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Literacy - Leaders in Literacy Education 

Ms. Trish Ward, Winnipeg

The Honourable John Harvard Lieutenant Governor and Ms. Trish Ward

The Honourable John Harvard Lieutenant Governor and Ms. Trish Ward
Photography by: Tracey Goncalves, Manitoba Government Photographer, Feb 28, 2008

Trish Ward is the Manager of Community Initiatives for River East Transcona School Division, where she has played a key role in the development and delivery of communty-based family literacy programs within the Divisional area.  Ms. Ward expanded the horizons of literacy programmming through community partnerships to with family literacy programs offered in such places as libraries, senior centres, personal care homes and home-visiting.  She has developed a collaborative and sustainable infrastructure that facilitates a systematic, integrated approach to family literacy with the assistance of parents, older adult and teen volunteers, and schools, health and early learning personnel.  Two examples are Young Parents Connecting Sessions and and the outreach and family literacy service newcomer and EAL families.  Trish sees the need to strenghthen community capacity. She has initiated and nurtured a variety of parent advisory groups so that parents have a significant input into all aspects of programming. Trish Ward is an innovator and visionary who is passionate about the evolvement and promotion of family and early literacy programming.

Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Literacy – Partnership for Literacy

Workplace Education Manitoba Steering Committee (WEMSC), Winnipeg

The Honourable John Harvard Lieutenant Governor with WEMSC Partners

The Honourable John Harvard Lieutenant Governor with WEMSC Partners
Photography by: Tracey Goncalves, Manitoba Government Photographer, Feb 28, 2008

Over the last 17 years the Workplace Education Manitoba Steering Committee (WEMSC) has championed workplace literacy throughout Manitoba and has provided leadership throughout Canada.  WEMSC was created with two business partners and two union representatives nominated by the Manitoba Federation of Labour.  Each of the four committee members is employed full time in a company, business organization or union and contributes their time to WEMSC on a voluntary basis.  WEMSC analyzes strategic opportunities for advancing industry in Manitoba and applies for funding for activities and projects that support, promote and further workplace literacy.  WEMSC has successfully completed over 100 research and development projects and has delivered hundreds of workplace literacy classes to thousands of individuals in the workforce.  Innovative projects include the Agriculture Sector Project which brought together competing companies to co-operatively research, develop and implements a training model to reflect challenging skills required by grain elevator operators and the Boeing Deaf for Deaf Series of videos to train Deaf employees which brought together multiple Deaf community groups.  Many WEMSC projects have received national awards from the Conference Board of Canada and the Canada Post Literacy Awards.  

The WEMSC Partners are:
The Manitoba Federation of Labour and the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, Manitoba Division. 

The current committee representatives are:  Heather Grant-Jury, Director of UFCW Training Centre; Ann Robins, CUPE Education Coordinator; Ron Koslowsky, Vice-President, Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters, Manitoba Division; Karen Milani, Vice-President Human Resources, The Northwest Company.

This page was last updated June 26, 2008