GOLD WINNER
Kate MacDonald
website
SILVER WINNER
DeRico Symonds
website
BRONZE WINNER
Suzy Hansen
6080 Young Street
website
Being nominated for this award was a bit of a shock for Kate MacDonald. “It wasn’t until I was looking for people to vote for it that I even saw that I was nominated,” she says. MacDonald has long been at the fore of local advocacy for issues from BLM and street checks to housing, policing and Indigenous sovereignty. And while many of these issues were on people’s minds this year, MacDonald says the fight isn’t over. “We’ve got a lot more room to push for the type of lives that we deserve,” she tells The Coast. “We can plan for and demand that we have all of our needs met, people deserve that and it’s possible, we’ve just got to work for it.” The branch manager of the north branch library also facilitates anti-oppression and anti-racism training. She’s thankful to partner Kordeena Clayton, the Clayton family, and her “African Nova Scotian heavy hitters, you know who you are” for helping her along the way, but as a young activist, MacDonald is nowhere near done. “I still feel like I have a ways to go, I still have so much to learn,” she says. “Maybe the next ballot you’ll see my name on is for mayor, who knows.”
