Four A&S alumni honoured with 2026 YWCA Toronto Distinction Awards

Kehkashan Basu (left photo, far right) and Janice Rubin (right photo, far right) awarded the 2026 YWCA Toronto Distinction Awards. Photo credit: Awesome Photography.

The annual YWCA Toronto Distinction Awards celebrates outstanding women and gender-diverse leaders who are driving equity and creating meaningful change in communities. In an Arts & Science News feature highlighting four U of T alumni who received the awards, writer Coby Zucker caught up with them to discuss their journeys.

New College is incredibly proud to see two of our very own among this year’s honourees: Law Award recipient Janice Rubin (BA 1985 NEW), co-founder and co-managing partner of Rubin Thomlinson LLP, dedicated to protecting human rights and shaping workplace harassment protections across Canada. Alongside her is Young Leader of Distinction Kehkashan Basu (HBA 2022 NEW), a Governor General’s Meritorious Service Decoration recipient who graduated in Environmental Studies after founding her global youth-led-non-profit, the Green Hope Foundation, at just 12 years old.

Check out the full story celebrating all of this year’s outstanding U of T recipients:

University of Toronto alumni swept all six of this year’s YWCA Toronto Distinction Awards, presented to women and gender-diverse people who are advancing gender equity in labour, immigration, health, corporate leadership and law.

Four winners are graduates of Arts & Science: Kehkashan Basu (Young Leader of Distinction), Juana Berinstein and Ellen Blais (Health), and Janice Rubin (Law).

During a ceremony in late May, the winners received their awards and were celebrated as changemakers creating a place at the table for women, girls and gender diverse people.

Empowering youth-led climate action

“The ceremony was so humbling, and I was honoured to be in such august company,” says Basu, who earned an honours bachelor of arts with high distinction in environmental studies in 2022, as a member of New College.

Basu received the Young Leader of Distinction Award for her work at Green Hope Foundation, a youth-led not-for-profit rooted in climate justice and gender equality. She founded the organization in 2012, when she was just 12 years old. Since then, it has helped improve the lives of more than 600,000 women and girls across 29 countries.

Green Hope Foundation has established solar-powered water filtration systems in remote climate-vulnerable communities, built solar STEM laboratories, schools and mobile libraries for girls, and spearheaded women-led climate-smart agriculture initiatives, among many other endeavours.

“Our work is rooted in the belief that sustainability, gender equity, human rights and peace are deeply interconnected,” Basu says.

Basu also encourages young people to use the power of their voices and believes that age has nothing to do with capability. “Some of the most transformative change begins when people decide to act, even before they feel completely ready,” she says. “Never wait for permission to lead.”

Redefining midwifery

Juana Berinstein and Ellen Kanika Tsi Tsa Blais received the YWCA Distinction Award in health for their efforts enabling midwives to provide care rooted in dignity, choice and equity to people across Ontario.

Berinstein and Blais are co-chief executive officers of the Association of Ontario Midwives (AOM). They are advancing the clinical and professional practice of Indigenous and registered midwives. All their efforts are rooted in the Two Row Wampum treaty and its focus on peace, friendship and respect.

“I feel honoured that Juana and I received this award,” says Blais, who earned a bachelor of science in 1996 as a member of Woodsworth College. “We agreed to do this work, but only together.”

Berinstein, who earned a bachelor of arts in 2002, also as a member of Woodsworth College, adds, “It is thanks to midwives supporting a vision of leadership based in reconciliation and shared leadership that Ellen and I have been able to to work together to lead the work of the Association of Ontario Midwives.”

AOM acts as the voice of midwives, ensuring that women and gender diverse people can depend on midwifery care. As part of this work, Berinstein and Blais collaborate with Indigenous communities to restore traditional birth practices through regulatory change and by establishing Indigenous midwifery programs.

“Birth brings joy to communities,” Blais says. “There is now a large movement of reclaiming Indigenous birth nationally and globally. The AOM has supported me in the creation of an Indigenous midwifery team and a funding envelope to continue to grow Indigenous midwifery in Ontario for a long time to come.”

Blais is following the advice of an Elder from the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, the late Helen Cromarty, who said “midwifery has been here since time before time. It is your job to keep the momentum going of bringing birth back home.”

Berinstein draws on her women and gender studies degree from Arts & Science in her work at AOM, specifically her studies around feminism and intersectionality.

“A midwife mentor of mine once said that feminism is the theory, and midwifery is the praxis,” she says. “Through midwifery, we are working towards a vision of health care that is rooted in equity, in dignity and in evidence-informed care that centres the well-being of the pregnant person.”

Protecting women in the workplace

Janice Rubin has been aware of the long-standing YWCA Awards since she was a young woman inspired by past recipients. She believes strongly in YWCA’s mandate: recognizing the unique and creative contributions women and gender-diverse people make to advancing equality and inclusion.

Now, Rubin is herself a winner for her contributions in the legal realm.

“It’s a great honour to be recognized this way,” says Rubin, who earned her bachelor of arts in 1985 as a member of New College.

Rubin built her own legal practice, Rubin & Co. LLP, from the ground up with the goal of improving protections against workplace harassment in Canada. Now, 35 years later, her advocacy, investigations and reviews have helped to protect hundreds of people from harassment at work and violations of their human rights.

“One of my great fortunes in this life was becoming a lawyer,” Rubin says. “It is an honourable profession from which you can contribute to social change.”

Rubin’s advice to other young women and gender diverse people — who may be inspired by her as she once was by past YWCA winners — is to keep on going and never quit.

“There are days, months and even years that feel extremely difficult, and you might be tempted to quit,” Rubin says. “However, the rewards of hanging in are immense. Having reached the 35-year anniversary of my call to the bar, working with the Rubin & Co. team is now the sweetest, most meaningful and fulfilling part of my career.”

Four A&S alumni honoured with 2026 YWCA Toronto Distinction Awards originally published on July 6, 2026, by Coby Zucker for A&S News.