Joan MacTavish Award Winner Marta Zaharia

1st annual Joan MacTavish Award Winner, Marta Zaharia

The inaugural Joan MacTavish Award was presented at the September, 28 2021 Annual General Meeting. Each year, one deserving CHKC employee who has demonstrated excellence in at least one of our values: Advocacy, Respect, Collaboration, Professionalism and Community will be the recipient of the award. This year, Marta Zaharia was selected as the first Joan MacTavish Award winner.

Marta Zaharia is a 1991 graduate of the George Brown College Intervenor for Deafblind Persons Program, making her one of the first ever graduates from this unique program. She has been working in the Deafblind Intervenor Services sector since 1992. Over the years, Marta has been dedicated to the field, striving for better consumer services. She started her career as an intervenor, working her way up to her current role as a Consumer Support Specialist at CHKC.

Marta has also flourished in expanding access for seniors with dual sensory loss, including an increase in available programming and the highest quality of intervenor services for CHKC’s senior consumers. Marta is also an advocate for intervenors and the professionalization of their role in the province of Ontario, most notably as the current president of the Intervenor Organization of Ontario (IOO). As a part of the IOO and Marta’s outstanding work, she became one of the founding board members of the Deafblind Network of Ontario (DBNO).

During the past three decades, Marta has become a well-respected name in Ontario and the field of deafblindness.

She has been a steady and reliable advocate for Canadians who are deafblind devoting 30 years of unparalleled service to CHKC.

We are pleased to present the first ever Joan MacTavish Award to Marta Zaharia.