Maggie MacDonnell, a teacher in a remote village in the Quebec province of Canada, has won the 3rd annual Global Teaching Prize, sponsored by the Varkey Foundation.
For the past six years, MacDonnell has taught middle and high schoolers in the Salluit village—the second-northernmost Inuit indigenous community in Quebec. It has a population of about 1,300 and can only be reached by air. The tiny village is plagued with high teenage-pregnancy rates, high levels of sexual abuse, drug and alcohol use, and young adult suicides.
MacDonnell was awarded the $1 million prize this month in Dubai. She told the Associated Press that she plans to use the money to establish an environmental-stewardship program to reconnect youths with their cultural traditions.
