2010 Joan Donaldson CBC News Scholarship recipients

• Josh Bloch
• Alexandra Hunnings
• Karen Jouhal
• Kevin Sauvé
• Vanmala Subramaniam
• Meg Wilcox
• Karin Yeske

Josh Bloch

Josh received an honours BA in philosophy from McGill University and graduates this year with a master of journalism from Ryerson University. Last summer, Josh completed a three-month internship with Al-Jazeera English in New York, and has subsequently worked as a freelancer for the network including coverage of the United Nations General Assembly debates.

From 2007 to 2009, Josh developed and facilitated The TAXI Project - an initiative addressing refugee and immigrant rights alongside PEN Canada, a human rights organization defending national and international issues of freedom of expression. He is also the current managing editor of the Book and Periodical Council's Freedom to Read magazine.

Josh has worked as an associate producer for City of Dreams (a Fist Full of Fire Production, 2008), about Afrocentric public school in Toronto, and co-wrote The Trial Of Jeremy Hinzman, a documentary theatre project about U.S. war resisters living in Canada (Oyster Productions and the Art for Real Change Collective, 2009).

Josh has volunteered at Toronto's Perram House Hospice, which specializes in end-of-life care for marginalized individuals. Currently, he is a board member with Parkdale Project Read, a community-based literacy program.

Alexandra Hunnings

Alexandra is completing a master of journalism degree at Ryerson University with a focus on broadcast journalism. Alexandra received the CBC Newsworld Award, given to the first-year master's student who displayed the highest level of excellence in broadcast journalism.

From April to August 2009, she did on-air reporting across southern Alberta for CTV Lethbridge. Her stories ranged from a local couple trying to turn property bought in Second Life, a virtual online world, into real Canadian dollars, to how seniors in the tiny rural community of Carmangay proved their passion for survival by building a not-for-profit grocery store in the village's shuttered elementary school. Alexandra has also interned at CTV B.C. as a researcher and chase producer, and Shaw TV Vancouver as a production assistant.

In 2007, Alexandra earned a bachelor of arts degree in history at the University of California, Berkeley, where she was a scholarship-athlete on the women's track and field team. She has competed across the U.S. and Canada in the hammer throw.

Alexandra participated in the 2010 March of Remembrance and Hope, where she travelled to Germany and Poland with Holocaust survivors and explored genocide prevention solutions. She has also volunteered for Access to Justice: Pro Bono Legal Society, co-ordinating meetings for lawyers who provided free legal assistance to anyone unable to afford a lawyer.

Karen Jouhal

Karen received a bachelor of arts degree in English and psychology from Simon Fraser University in 2008 and graduates this year with a post-baccalaureate degree in journalism from the University of King's College in Halifax.

In 2009-2010, Karen completed three internships at CTV B.C., where she was responsible for researching leads, pitching news stories and chasing and conducting interviews. A large amount of the research she did focused on investigating recent murders in the Lower Mainland. One of her internships was also completed during the Olympics, when she worked at the assignment desk to help cover breaking news. Prior to her start in journalism, she worked for the provincial government by providing support and confidential referrals to people in the community experiencing gambling problems.

Karen volunteers for the Dave Sidhu Memorial (DSM) Foundation. Their annual Christmas toy drive has raised thousands of toys for sick and underprivileged children around the world. Beneficiaries include hospitals, hospices and women's shelters in B.C., as well as orphanages in Ukraine, India and Africa. She has also volunteered for the South Fraser Regional Crisis Line, where she provided crisis intervention counselling to callers.

Kevin Sauvé

Kevin is graduating with a master of journalism from the University of British Columbia. He had won a CTV Globemedia Fellowship for acceptance into the journalism program as well as a Health Research Communications Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. In 2006, Kevin earned a bachelor of science majoring in biological science at the University of Guelph. During his fourth year, he traveled to the University of Rajasthan in India where he spent three months completing an independent study on development, human health and environmental quality.

Since June 2009, Kevin has been a videographer for Ecotrust Canada, where he has produced video projects on sustainable resource management. As well, he has been a research assistant for the National Core for Neuroethics at UBC Hospital in Vancouver, where he has explored multimedia coverage of ethics issues in neuroscience. As part of his work with the Core, Kevin helped to organize a communications workshop for world-renowned journalists, ethicists, and neuroscientists, following which he helped draft a white paper titled "Neurotalk: Improving the communication of neuroscience" that was published in Nature.

Kevin has volunteered as communications director and videographer for B.C.'s Ancient Forests Alliance as well as media director for Students Take Action Now: Darfur (STAND). In 2009, he provided content analysis of media coverage of the 2009 Vancouver Peace Summit on behalf of the Dali Lama Centre for Peace and Education.

Vanmala Subramaniam

​Vanmala has just received her graduate diploma in journalism from Concordia University in Montreal. Last year, she earned her bachelor of arts in economics and political science from Trinity College at the University of Toronto.

In 2009, Vanmala was a business reporting intern with the business section of the National Post (Financial Post). Also last year, she did a business reporting internship at The Star (Malaysia). She covered the finance and economy beat, where she wrote stories such as one that looked at the business and economic implications of increasing "Islamisation" in Malaysia. As a research assistant at the U of T's Mowat Centre for Public Policy, she wrote media statements and researched public policy issues.

From 2008-2009, Vanmala volunteered for the U of T's G8 Research Group, where she assessed commitments made by Japan and France on intellectual property rights during the 2007 G8 summit. In 2005, she was a volunteer at the Children's Protection Society in Penang, Malaysia. She set up a chorus group for the children at the centre and taught children how to play the piano.

Meg Wilcox

Meg has just graduated with a master of journalism degree from Carleton University in Ottawa, where she was awarded the 2009-2010 SSHRC Canada Graduate Master's Scholarship. In 2007, she graduated with a bachelor of arts in communication from the University of Ottawa.

Earlier this year, Meg was a public relations intern in Vancouver for the CTV Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium. Last year, she was an intern producer for CBC Radio One's Bandwidth in Ottawa. During the summer of 2009, Meg was an intern reporter for CFJC TV 7 in Kamloops, B.C. Prior to that, she was an intern producer at CBC Radio's GO! She has served as a House of Commons page and was a parliamentary tour guide.

Her volunteer work includes Journalists for Human Rights, the University of Ottawa's English Debating Society and The Vagina Monologues. She is also a member of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO's Youth Advisory Group.

Karin Yeske

Karin has just graduated with her bachelor of arts in journalism from the University of Regina.

Last year, she was an intern producer/reporter for the daily current affairs program Alberta Primetime (CTV), where she was later hired as a summer employee. She pitched story ideas and produced panel discussions as well as one-on-one interviews on stories including on human trafficking, greenhouse gas emissions and access to palliative and home care. She worked on topics ranging from agriculture and politics to the environment, health, finances and technology.

Earlier this year, Karin was a co-producer and reporter for a bi-monthly radio show 29:45 airing on Regina's community radio station CJTR. She recently directed a documentary, Denendeh, that received two awards at the National Student Film Festival 2010 in Regina. The documentary will air on CBC Saskatchewan later this year as a part of a student showcase day.

In 2009-2010, Karin volunteered for the Heart of the City Piano Program, where she taught three schoolchildren how to play piano. Along with her classmates, she created the Regina chapter of Journalists for Human Rights (JHR). She has also volunteered at a local nursing home and has been a crisis centre volunteer.