Sheila Purves, BSR ’79 will receive one of the awards celebrating UBC’s Best. She was selected for the Global Citizenship Award for her work over the past three decades promoting modern medical rehabilitation and community based approaches to the healthcare system in China.
After graduation from the UBC program she was licensed as both an Occupational Therapist and Physiotherapist. She went on to receive a Masters of Public Health in 1996 from Boston University and in 2011 she was presented with an honorary Doctor of Social Science from The Hong Kong Institute of Education
More than 20,000 students in mainland China have benefited from Sheila Purves’ knowledge of rehabilitation in her role as director of the Hong Kong Society of Rehabilitation’s international and China programs. Ms. Purves developed training programs in community-based therapy for the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre for Rehabilitation in Hong Kong and she has conducted training courses for doctors who came from all over China. Through the training of care providers she has greatly improved the quality of life for countless patients and people with disabilities in urban and rural China.
She is truly an inspiring individual and is most deserving of this prestigious award.
The Alumni UBC 2015 achievement awards will be presented at the alumni UBC Achievement Awards dinner to be held Tuesday, October 27, 2015, at 6:00 pm in the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre on UBC’s Point Grey campus. Tickets and information about the other alumni members being honored this year is available at https://www.alumni.ubc.ca/events/awards/