Each year, the ERCBNA Advocacy Office presents the Blessed Edmund Rice Advocacy Person of the Year Award to an ERCBNA school staff member who has demonstrated an exceptional commitment to promoting advocacy efforts throughout the academic year. The recipient of the 2023-2024 award is Michelle Rapier, Department Chair of Modern Languages, and the Outreach & Advocacy Coordinator at Vancouver College.
Michelle has been intimately involved in sharing the Charism of Edmund Rice and interacting with the Global Edmund Rice Network during her time at Vancouver College. Whether through her involvement in representing VC at ACTION Student Leadership Conference and the EREBB Beyond Borders Congress in Dublin, participating in the Pilgrims in Peru program, moderating student immersion trips to Brownsville or the South Bronx, or participating in Edmund Rice International’s (ERI) Human Rights Training program, Michelle has shown an incredible commitment to both learning about, and sharing the charism of Edmund Rice, and how to advance it in her school and across the Edmund Rice network.
Beyond just participating in these programs, Michelle has made it a priority to involve VC students in learning about human rights on a global scale, and involving them in using their education to amplify the voices of those marginalized and made poor in our world. Michelle’s work in advocating for indigenous communities in Canada, and engaging with ERI to submit written and video statements for Canada’s universal periodic review process, have inspired her students and school community and others around the world to get engaged with advocating for human rights on the international level.
On Michelle receiving the award, Vancouver College Principal Daryl Weaver shared: “Michelle has always been an advocate for the marginalized inside and outside our community, but since moving into the Outreach Role here, she has transformed both our international and local work so that it is much richer, student-centered, and student-led, as well as impactful on our whole community from the Board, to the staff, to the students, and to the parents. We are grateful for her organizational super-skills, but especially how she lives the advocacy mission every day from deep within her heart.”
The ERCBNA Province congratulates Michelle on this award, and extend our thanks for her tireless efforts in learning about, embodying, and sharing the Charism of Edmund Rice, and advocating for the marginalized and voiceless in our world.