Toronto, November 19, 2024 – Zoey Roy is the recipient of the $15,000 Ontario Arts Foundation Artist Educator Award. The award is given annually to an Ontario resident who exemplifies excellence in arts education.
About Zoey Roy
Zoey Roy
is a celebrated Nehithaw-Dene Halfbreed Métis poet and community-based educator based in Ottawa, Ontario.
Zoey Roy has been a practicing spoken word poet and community-based educator for nearly 20 years. She is inspired by the tenets of hip-hop. This is what she used to create a foundation for herself. Zoey went from being homeless, criminalized, and disenfranchised to accessing, advocating for, and designing programs and services that lead to young people becoming more seen and heard. Zoey uses her poetry to vocalize the complexities of structural poverty and how it manifests in one’s life and illustrates what freedom looks like for her.
Zoey holds a Bachelor of Education from SUNTEP (Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program), and a Master’s of Public Policy from Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy (Saskatchewan). She is now pursuing a PhD in Education at York University, researching how collective songwriting reveals the medicinal properties of urban Indigenous communities.
Zoey has received the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal, the Indspire Award, the YWCA Women of Distinction Award in Saskatoon, the Saskatchewan Arts Board Award for Teaching and Learning, and the 2023 laureate for the University of Saskatchewan’s One to Watch.
About the Award
The Ontario Arts Foundation Artist Educator Award recognizes an Ontario resident who exemplifies excellence in arts education, demonstrates a unique approach to their arts education practice, creates meaningful learning experiences for young people, inspires connections to the arts beyond the classroom and continues to maintain an active arts practice.
The Ontario Arts Foundation established and manages the endowment that funds the Artist Educator Award. The Ontario Arts Council is responsible for the selection process. The 2024 award recipient was selected through the Ontario Arts Council’s peer assessment process from the applicants to the Indigenous Artists in Communities and Schools Projects program.
Previous recipients include Nathaneal Larochette (2023), Mike Cope (2022), and Elizabeth Doxtater (2021). See the full list of previous recipients.
Be Well | written and performed by Zoey Roy. Produced, Mixed and Mastered by Obeatz, Filmed by Geordie Trifa and features Akira and Sage Roy. The project took place in Squamish, BC.
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For information, please contact:
Bruce Bennett, Executive Director
Ontario Arts Foundation
Tel: (416) 969-7413 bbennett@oafdn.ca
Established in 1991, the Ontario Arts Foundation (OAF) is passionately committed to building long-term support for the arts in Ontario. In 2023-2024, the OAF paid $4.6 million in endowment income and $500,000 in awards and scholarships.
For 60 years, the Ontario Arts Council (OAC) has played a vital role in promoting and assisting the development of the arts for the enjoyment and benefit of Ontarians. The OAC reached 27.4 million people through events and arts education activities across the province in 2021-22. In 2023-2024, OAC invested its grants program budget of $53.3 million in 219 communities across all 124 Ontario ridings, providing 2,149 grants to individual artists and 1,043 grants to organizations.
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