Busby’s Emma Kaliel, a member of the Double Diamond Multi 4-H Club for the last eight year, is one of four recipients of the 2018 4-H Canada Leadership Excellence Award of Distinction (LEAD), which comes with a $20,000 post-secondary scholarship.
“I was absolutely amazed (to receive the award),” said Kaliel, who won the Science and Technology Pillar award. “There’s been so many years that have led up to this point and I’ve had the help of so many amazing people, like my 4-H leaders.”
She highlighted the help of general leader Anna Meakin and beef leaders Geoff Felske and Susan Littlechilds.
“They really, really helped me grow as a person and helped me shape my skills and abilities and helped me reach this point.”
Kaliel found out back in July that she was one of the Top 5 candidates under the Science and Technology Pillar when she did an online interview with two 4-H Canada reps.
“Later in August, I found out that I had won the award, but I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. So I had to keep it a secret until now, which was really hard,” she said. “It almost slipped out so many times.”
As explained in a release from 4-H Canada, the awards recognize four outstanding, accomplished youth who embody the 4-H youth movement and demonstrate personal development, community impact and leadership excellence.
An award is given for all four of 4-H Canada’s Leadership Development Pillars: Community Engagement and Communications, Environment and Healthy Living, Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security, and Science and Technology.
Kaliel said there was an application process earlier this year for the LEAD scholarship, along with other bursaries available from 4-H.
“You just had to put in a couple of essays about key topics that they were looking for,” she said. “It was mostly about the pillar you were applying under.”
Kaliel said she has really loved the sciences throughout high school, noting she had some really good teachers at R.F. Staples School that made her want to study it more.
In 2017, she served as a student researcher at the University of Alberta as part of the Women in Scholarship Engineering Science and Technology (WISEST) Summer Research Program.
“Their main goal is to promote females in their STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) field. There’s not very many of them, so they want to … show that women can do that sort of thing,” she said.
“After I did that program, I was really, really interested in helping to promote that too. It’s just an important thing to me, because other than WISEST, I haven’t really had anyone saying, ‘Hey, you can do this too. It’s not just something that guys can do.’
“I really wanted to help promote that for the other girls in rural Alberta. You don’t see that very often in small towns, and I want to help other girls realize they can do that too.”
Kaliel is now a first-year student studying Engineering at the University of Alberta. She said the first year of study is very basic, so she doesn’t have to specialize until later on; however, she has expressed an early interest in statics, which is used heavily in architectural and structural engineering.
“I’m not going to promise that I’ll go into civil engineering; I want to keep my options open and see maybe if there’s something else I like or I’m better at doing.”
Kaliel is a fourth-generation 4-Her; her father Rod was in 4-H along with his siblings, as was his father and his siblings. Her great-grandfather George was one of the founders of the Fawcett 4-H Club, which eventually evolved into other 4-H groups in the area.
As noted in a bio provided with the release, Kaliel has attended many district, regional, provincial and national 4-H events, including a Club-to-Club Exchange with a Nova Scotia 4-H Club in 2016.
She is still technically with the Double Diamond club; her sisters are still members, so she will help them out whenever they it.
Her bio states she is an avid reader with a keen interest in social issues like reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous people, LGBTQ rights and the empowerment of women in the workplace.
In addition to the $20,000 scholarship — which is provided through a partnership with CN Rail — the four LEAD recipients are also matched with a “high-impact mentor” who plays a leadership role in their industry and community.
As noted in the release, this mentorship relationship is an important component of the award program, supporting LEAD recipients as they move forward in their careers.
Kaliel said she didn’t have anyone in mind when she was asked who she would like as a mentor, except that it should be a woman involved in science and engineering.
She said she will find out who her mentor is until an awards banquet this January, but after that, she can connect with her mentor as much as her schedule and her mentor’s schedule allows.
“It depends on the situation. But I’m really, really grateful that I get this opportunity too, because that would be such a lifesaver.”
