2011 Joan Donaldson CBC News Scholarship recipients
- Najat Abdalhadi
- Adam Avrashi
- Alana Bergstrom
- Lily Boisson
- Fabiola Carletti
- Giselle Dookhie
- Sol Israel
- Sachin Seth
Najat Abdalhadi
In the summer of 2010, Najat completed internships at Al-Arabiya's headquarters in Dubai and at Al-Jazeera's local bureau in Ramallah, West Bank. In May of that year, she was awarded the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Scholarship by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
In 2008, Najat joined the board of editors at the Yalla Journal, a Toronto-based grassroots project that provides a space for youth to express their thoughts on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict creatively and openly, and encourages them to engage with each other without fear of retribution.
Najat was born in the Palestinian Territories. In 2003, she joined the United World College of the Adriatic in Italy, where she helped organize several multinational student conferences on European integration and international affairs.
In addition to English, Najat speaks Arabic, French and Italian.
Adam Avrashi
In the past year Adam has completed two broadcast internships. Starting in September 2010, he worked as an assignment desk intern at CBC Montreal for five months, mainly assisting with radio news. He was also an intern at CJAD 800 News, where he filed a handful of radio reports including a piece about repairing one of Montreal's deteriorating bridges and a report on the best places to work in Canada. In 2010, Adam won the Mix 96- Nick Auf der Maur Scholarship for academic excellence in radio broadcasting.
In the summer of 2010, Adam interned at Concordia University Magazine, writing three feature stories and assisting with production, photography and copy editing. He has since become a regular freelance writer for the magazine. He has also written for the alternative weekly, the Montreal Mirror.
Throughout his university education, Adam was very involved in student media. For nearly two years he hosted his own current affairs program on CJLO radio and he was also the arts editor of the Concordian newspaper. Most recently, he was the National Arts Bureau Chief for the Canadian University Press (CUP), a wire service used by over 70 university newspapers across Canada.
Alana Bergstrom
Last winter, Alana interned with CBC in Regina reporting in Television and Radio. From then, she has continued to work in the newsroom as a reporter. She's covered stories ranging from a Saskatchewan couple concerned with aging Enbridge pipelines on their property to the province's Premier announcing the government's support for research into the Liberation treatment for MS.
Prior to her start in Journalism, Alana studied accounting at the University of Saskatchewan where she completed a Bachelor of Commerce in 2005. She's also spent time travelling the U.K and Europe, as well as South East Asia where she taught English in Bangkok.
Lily Boisson
In 2010-2011 Lily completed three week-long internships with CBC New Brunswick where she was responsible for pitching stories, researching leads and writing for radio and television. While at CBC, Lily covered a range of stories from house fires to university finances. She also worked as managing editor of the St. Thomas weekly paper, the Aquinian. As a print reporter Lily broke the story of a student death after a team party and covered the hazing allegations that followed. This local story soon became national news.
Lily has returned to her home country of Haiti many times to volunteer with children. She has worked with Food for the Poor, a major aid organization in Haiti which builds homes and distributes food. She has also worked with Hôpital Nos Petits Frères et Soeurs, a free pediatric hospital in Port-au-Prince. In Canada she has volunteered for a local chapter of Relay for Life, which raises thousands of dollars for Cancer research each year.
Fabiola Carletti
Fabiola has interned at the Toronto Star, the Tyee, and the Globe and Mail's B.C. bureau. She has also done freelance work for This Magazine, Schema Magazine, and affiliates of the Canadian University Press. She has recently completed a master of journalism at the University of British Columbia. Two years prior, she graduated summa cum laude from York University, having earned an honours double major in Professional Writing and Communication Studies.
Over the years, she has gratefully received several academic distinctions, including SSHRC funding and the top fellowship at the UBC School of Journalism. This year, she was the sole teaching assistant for school's undergraduate New Media course.
Although she is proud of her academic accolades, her fondest memories are rooted in her civic engagement, which includes work with at-risk youth, sexual assault survivors, and special needs adults. She believes in connecting with the citizenry she serves, and actively does so through her popular blog, The Fab Files, and through her twitter account @fiercefab.
Giselle Dookhie
Her research examines weather patterns that occur on large-scales and small-scales (where small-scales include thunderstorms) associated with heavy warm season precipitation at Montreal in the Saint Lawrence River Valley. She has presented her research at the 12th Northeast Regional Workshop in Albany, New York and the 15th Cyclone Workshop in Monterey, California.
In the summer of 2008 she did an internship at The Weather Network as a briefing meteorologist where she was later hired as an on-call employee. She designed weather products (such as maps for short-range forecasts, rainfall warning maps, etc) for on-air use. In addition she gave a series of weather briefings to on-air personalities, writers and producers, and maintained a continuous weather watch.
In her spare time she enjoys exploring, traveling, and playing ultimate Frisbee.
Sol Israel
At Carleton, Sol focused on broadcast journalism and short documentary production. He helped produce a short film about an underdog Ottawa mayoral candidate, and produced a long-form radio documentary about the politicization of the victims' rights movement in Canada.
Before attending journalism school, Sol interned at The Jerusalem Post and freelanced for The Boston Globe in his native Boston. He managed communications for CAPLAW, a Boston-based non-profit legal organization that advises community action agencies across America.
Sol has volunteered as an English teacher in Beijing, China and in communities across Israel. He has also worked as a drum instructor for children in Boston and Brooklyn, New York.
Sachin Seth
In 2010, Sachin was the only Canadian awarded a summer news internship at the CNN world headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. He worked full-time with CNN Newsroom with Don Lemon and part-time with CNN International, writing and producing both live and taped segments, and contributing heavily to the channel's Peabody award-winning BP oil spill coverage. He also wrote a feature article for CNN.com exploring the relationship between online anonymity and racially charged comments surrounding the building of an Islamic community centre near ground zero.
Later that year, Sachin interned with the CBC's London bureau where he conducted streeters and pre-interviews and chased guests for stories ranging from the European economic collapse to the engagement announcement of Prince William and Kate Middleton. He also completed a piece on Britain's young carers that aired on CBC Radio's The World This Weekend.
Sachin was the president of Journalist for Human Rights at Ryerson and was awarded the Ruth Hancock Award from the Broadcast Executives' Society and the Canadian Association of Broadcasters. His articles have been published in the Toronto Star, and on CNN.com,Globalpost.com and CBC.ca.