November 8. 2021
Outstanding Achievement Award – Gwen Madiba & Hanns Peter Princivil
Gwen Madiba and Hanns Peter Princivil work tirelessly to improve living conditions for homeless Black families. During the pandemic, they took the children living in temporary shelter at the Tabor building in Vanier to the park at noon every day to give their parents a break. When they overheard one boy’s teacher complaining about background noise in his apartment during online classes, Gwen and Hanns raised funds to deliver nearly 1,500 sets of headphones to homeless Black children living in shelters, and to Black youth and children from low-income households. They provided 50 homeless youth with their first bicycle and used their own money
and muscles to help move families in their community. Through Equal Chance, Gwen and Hanns have developed many free programs for homeless Black families and children in temporary housing, including meals, mental health support and employment services. Their culturally informed, inclusive programming has helped 125 children and youth in the past year.
Here is how Gwen reacted to her award on LinkedIn:
Gwen Madiba
I am honoured to inform you that I received the Crime Prevention “Outstanding Achievement Award” from the City of Ottawa and Crime Prevention Ottawa alongside Hanns Peter Princivil and other community leaders who spent the summer dedicating their time, energy and resources to support the most vulnerable children and youth in our community. To receive the Outstanding achievement award from our city, Ottawa is truly an honour and a blessing! But this award belongs to all the people who support our programs at Equal Chance and make them possible. This is why, after the award ceremony, I met up with Howard H W Stanley and members of his bike club to hand him the award because he deserves it as much as we do! He went above and beyond for one of our programs and provided over 40 free bikes to homeless children in temporary housing. It truly takes a village and we would never be able to sustain any of our programs without the community! To all of you who help us feed the community; who help us develop programs, who show up even on rainy days, this award belongs to you. To Joe Doherty who also helped us obtain bikes for the children and who provided funds for families during the holidays, this award is yours as well. To the Otto’s group, Otto’s BMW and Otto’s Subaru, Sonia and Arief and the whole Otto’s team, James Jefferson, this award is for you! This award belongs to every single one of you who contribute constantly the près ou de loin! Merci beaucoup! #CPOAwards I pray that I can continue to honour my mission on earth that is being in service of others. Thank you Crime Prevention Ottawa. Thank you to the City of Ottawa. Thank you Reverend Bailey! Thank you Councillor Mathieu Fleury for being a great advocate!