Edit Petrovic Memorial Scholarship
Edit Petrovic had a distinguished academic career that was culminated in her receiving her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Belgrade. Throughout her studies Edit was the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships most notably a Yugoslav government scholarship for Columbia University, a British Council scholarship for Manchester University and a Fulbright scholarship. After serving as a university professor in both Serbia and Canada, Edit brought her extensive research experience to the private sector where she worked for a number of Calgary firms including ECO Canada. At ECO, Edit served as Senior Manager of Research from January 2008 to May 2009. In her tenure at ECO, Edit played a critical role in outlining the strategic direction of ECO’s research projects and greatly enriched the organization with her tremendous breadth of knowledge and compassion and empathy for her co-workers.
This scholarship was created to honor the memory of a truly inspirational person. A devoted daughter, wife, mother and sister Edit Petrovic was widely respected by her many friends and colleagues from around the world. Edit was an independent thinker whose intellectual curiosity often found new and important insight into difficult problems. Her patience and mentorship to her colleagues provided tremendous opportunity to learn from her experience and has provided an important legacy at ECO Canada. The recipient of this award is recognized as someone who is similarly committed to their academic career in environmental research with the hopes of instilling in them the drive, vision and commitment that Edit embodied. The Edit Petrovic Memorial Scholarship is made possible by generous contributions from Edit’s family and friends.
2010 Winner: Walter Pang - Calgary, AB 
In his own words Walter Pang wrote, “Time and time again, I have seen the tremendous power and force youth can have when working together to bring about environmental change.” Walter believes that youth play an important role in environmental stewardship as they are “ultimately the inheritors of tomorrow.”
It is with this perspective that Walter founded the Youth Earth Ambassadors club, an environmental network in Calgary, Alberta that promotes environmental collaboration between students. Today it involves six green organizations, five schools and over 250 youth.
After its first year alone, the Youth Earth Ambassadors totaled 4,000 hours in environmental services. During this time Walter presented Dave Bronconnier, Calgary Mayor, with a petition containing over 1,500 signatures in support of the bylaw that called for the reduction of environmentally devastating, cancer causing pesticides. More recently, the Youth Earth Ambassadors initiated Calgary’s first inter-school bike-in competition to raise awareness on green modes of transportation—resulting in 511 students demonstrating support.
At school Walter has been the president of the Earth Club for three years, leading a club of 80 students in a variety of school projects including a successful recycling program. Walter aspires to one day bridge his environmental passion with his business skills. He hopes to become an environmental accountant and has selected the Queens University commerce program for its environment focused accounting practices.
2009 Winner: Camila Das Gupta - Halifax, NS
ECO Canada is proud to announce that Camila Das Gupta is the first recipient of the Edit Petrovic Memorial Scholarship.
Camila is a passionate environmental leader who has had a positive impact on others and the way they see the environment. Her environmental values began to take hold when she attended Sunship Earth summer camp as a youth delegate. She later expanded on this experience by returning to the camp as a senior staff member and “molding the minds of around 100 children into the environmentally conscious and caring people”.
Not stopping at that, she became a member of a team that created Mindshift; an entertaining presentation aimed at educating grade ten science students on why environmental consciousness is important. Mindshift was such a success that the creative team was invited to attend the national EECOM conference as one of the keynote speakers.
Camila is currently studying at Dalhousie University in the Environment, Sustainability and Society, and International Development programs. She hopes to one day raise environmental awareness on a large global scale.