The recipient for the 2009 Sybil Shack Human Rights Youth Award is Anna-Celestrya Carr.  She is creative youth leader who has focused her energy and dedication on her Aboriginal roots, and on advancing the rights of Aboriginal Woman.  Anna-Celestrya has worked with many organizations and institutions to promote the rights of Aboriginal women, including the University of Manitoba when she was vice president of the University’s Aboriginal Students Association. 

The program consists of workshops designed to help students deal with an increasingly intolerant school environment: the racial, homophobic and sexist jokes, hate graffiti and casual put-downs that have become a part of their daily experience. The Manitoba Association for Rights and Liberties (MARL) believes students can take a leading role in responding to hate. It is the everyday actions of students that will prevent hate from flourishing. These workshops focus on empowering students to be responsive bystanders.

At a luncheon on December 9, 2005, the inaugural Dr. Sybil Shack Memorial Human Rights Youth Award was presented to the Maples Collegiate Unity Group.

In 2004, we were saddened by the passing of Dr. Sybil Shack, a woman who won national recognition as an educator, writer, and broadcaster and was active in the promotion of human rights all her life.

A remarkable and committed educator, Dr. Shack never confined her interests to the school system. The boards and committees she has served on are too numerous to list here. The Manitoba Association for Rights and Liberties is fortunate that she devoted so much of her time to its activities, having served as a board member, a vice-president and co-convenor of the Legislative Review Committee. We are fortunate, too, that her commitment to the organization took the form of a bequest upon her passing.

In order to honour the life of Dr. Sybil Shack and her commitment to educating youth and to human rights, the Board of Directors of MARL decided to use her generous gift to recognize the work of young people that has had an impact on the advancement of rights and freedoms in Manitoba. With our partners, the Manitoba Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Commission, we agreed to rename the Manitoba Human Rights Youth Award as the Dr. Sybil Shack Memorial Human Rights Youth Award.

The Maples Collegiate Unity Group has been recognized for its long term commitment to human rights and equality both in their school and in the community. Formed in 1994 by students who wanted to respond to racist comments they heard around them. Since then the group has grown from 11 to 50 members. They have played a key role in bringing diverse groups of students together in their school and they continue to bring the community's attention to human rights issues through their annual Unity March and presentations at conferences with community leaders.