Susie Smith Memorial Prize
Oxfam has established a prize to honour the life and work of Susie Smith who died in June 2006.
Susie touched the lives of many people around the world in her 30-year career with Oxfam. In her later years with Oxfam, Susie championed the cause of HIV and AIDS and pioneered new approaches to tackling the pandemic.
With this prize, Oxfam wants to acknowledge and build on Susie’s deep sense of justice and commitment to sub-Saharan African and her incredible talent and determination to challenge traditional thinking – especially about HIV and AIDS – wherever she found it.
Prize winners in 2008/9
The 2008/2009 Susie Smith Memorial Prize has been awarded to Rory Kilalea for his play ‘Colours’. With over 25 entries, the judges had a very difficult choice to make. But they felt the powerful poignancy of the play and the compassion, humanity and sensitivity with which Kilalea handled the subject matter made him a worthy winner.
Blessing Musariri’s poem ‘Pandemic’ was a very close runner-up. The judges wanted to reflect the tremendous impact it had on them by featuring it in full here.
The judges would like to congratulate Rory and Blessing and commend all entrants on their excellent submissions.
Rory Kilalea is a Zimbabwean playwright and author currently living in London. He has worked with a number of organisations to promote education about HIV and sexual awareness. His short stories have been awarded recognition worldwide.
Blessing Musariri is the author of three books - Rufaro's Day, Going Home - A Tree's Story and The Mystery of Rukhodzi Mountain. Her work has also featured in various international anthologies.
About The Prize
The prize is awarded to a single piece of writing on HIV and AIDS from sub-Saharan Africa which has already been published. Any writing – including an article, poetry, fiction, or a chapter of a book – of up to 10,000 words and published in English since 2006 will be eligible. The judges will focus on the quality of the submissions and on the impact the writing has had.
Further information about the 2009/10 prize will be available in late 2009.
More about Susie Smith
- The Guardian (1.7MB pdf)
- The Gazette (505KB pdf)
- The Financial Times (283KB pdf)
More about the panel
Belinda Coote worked for Oxfam for 18 years, first as a policy advisor on international trade, and then as a manager within the international programme, working mainly on South Asia and Southern Africa. She left Oxfam in 2002 to take up the post of Chief Executive of Medical Aid for Palestinians from which she moved on in 2006 to become CEO of Lattitude Global Volunteering, an organisation that provides volunteering opportunities for young people worldwide.
Ms. Ann Grant worked with Voluntary Services Overseas in Uganda, before studying International Relations and African Studies at Sussex University (1967-70) and at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London (1970-71). From 1971 – 1989 she worked in the Foreign Office at which point she resigned from the Foreign Office to work with Oxfam, the UK’s largest development and campaigning charity, as its Communications Director. She returned to the FCO and worked on African issues, first as Head of Department in 1996 and then as Director for Africa and the Commonwealth from 1998-2000. She was British High Commissioner to South Africa from 2000-2005, and joined Standard Chartered Bank as Vice Chairman (Standard Chartered Capital Markets Ltd) in June 2005.
Michael Holman, a journalist and a novelist, was brought up in Zimbabwe. He worked for the Financial Times first as an Africa correspondent from Zambia and, from 1984-2002, as the Africa editor.
Martin Kalungu-Banda works as Global Leadership Advisor for Oxfam GB's Global Centre of Learning on HIV and AIDS. He is based in Oxford, UK.
Sarah Lane Smith is Susie Smith’s daughter.
Dr. Kevin Watkins is currently working for UNESCO heading up the team that is responsible for producing the annual Education For All Global Monitoring Report. Between 2004 and 2007 he was Director of the Human Development Report Office (HDRO). Kevin joined the HDRO after serving 13 years with Oxfam GB, most recently as Head of Research. During his years there, Dr Watkins helped make Oxfam an influential voice on issues such as trade, globalisation and human poverty, shaping public discourse through its various publications. He also managed the team behind Oxfam's campaign on education and trade advocacy.
