First Rachel Petkac Community Action Project awarded

Today Rachel Petkac would be 20 years old. For the ones that didn’t have the pleasure to meet Rachel, she was a wonderful Changemaker who left a mark in our memories and hearts. We met her in November 2009 at our Global Youth Summit in the U.K. She sadly left us as a consequence of a tragic accident last winter.

There is not enough we can do to honour the memory of someone like Rachel, but to our minds the best we can do is to help Changemakers like her bring positive change to the world, and because of that, as announced on 5 March, we decided to institute a Community Action Project awarded yearly in her name.

Rachel’s parents, who graciously helped us evaluate the submissions, have decided to award the first Rachel Petkac CAP to Global Forum 40, an initiative that aims to combat HIV/AIDS and other STD’s around the world through peer education.

We would like to thank Rachel’s parents with all our hearts for their help reading through the applications and selecting the awarded CAP, and we are sure the GF40 team will do their best to make the project a success in honour of Rachel’s memory.

- Gabriela Jäger