Roxanne Joyal
About Roxanne Joyal :
Roxanne Joyal is an experienced international development practitioner and leadership specialist with legal expertise. She is a founding staff member at Free The Children, the world’s largest network of children helping children through education, and a head facilitator at Leaders Today, the world’s top youth leadership training organization.
Roxanne plays a vital role at Leaders Today in empowering young people through leadership education, providing them with the inspiration and tools to affect positive social change. An exceptional facilitator and speaker, she frequently addresses business groups, government bodies, educators, unions and students’ groups.
A former parliamentary page in the Canadian House of Commons, her involvement with development work began at a young age, spending six months in the Klong Toey slum of Bangkok, Thailand, where she cared for mothers and children afflicted with AIDS.
Roxanne graduated with distinction from Stanford after completing a degree in international relations. Upon winning a coveted Rhodes Scholarship, she went on to complete a law degree at Oxford University with an emphasis on family and labor law. Roxanne completed her legal training by clerking for the Supreme Court of Canada in 2005.
In her work with Free The Children, Roxanne’s leadership role has contributed to the organization’s many accomplishments in the areas of education, alternative income, healthcare, water and sanitation provision and peace building which have earned Free The Children three Nobel Peace Prize nominations, The organization also facilitated high profile partnerships with organizations such as the United Nations and Oprah’s Angel Network. Roxanne has assumed a key role in creating and sustaining development and economic empowerment programs in countries including Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and South Africa. She also heads Free the Children’s micro-lending initiative in Kenya, which seeks to empower women through micro-enterprise.
In her work with Me to We, Roxanne established the Kenya School of the Savannah, a first-of-its-kind facility, designed to educate and engage youth and adults through international volunteer adventures.
Roxanne, a French-Canadian, has been featured as “Faces of the Future: 100 Young Canadians to Watch” in Maclean’s magazine, and she is an Action Canada Fellow. In 2005, Roxanne was selected by the Women’s Executive Network’s Top 100: Canada’s Most Powerful Women. Her work has been extensively covered by the CBC, the Globe and Mail, the Ottawa Citizen and the Winnipeg Free Press.
|
