Samantha Nutt

If more people were to listen when Dr. Samantha Nutt speaks, the world would be a safer place. Fewer children would suffer. Governments would reconsider the militarization of aid. Nutt doesn’t just talk, she acts, and is clearly making a difference.

Samantha Nutt, Founder of War Child Canada, is no arm-chair critic.  She has been on the front lines of war, and the Assistant Professor of Family and Community Medicine at U of T is now an internationally known activist and humanitarian.

Nutt wasn’t as well known in 1995 when she visited Baidoa, Somalia, “the city of death.” She didn’t tell her parents where she was going, and her first experience on the front lines of war changed her forever. She arrived a doctor, but left an aid worker.

In 1999, Nutt launched War Child Canada. War Child works with war-affected communities to help children reclaim their childhood through access to education, opportunity and justice. War Child takes an active role in raising public awareness around the impact of war on communities and the shared responsibility to act.

"Getting a university education is more than a means to an end. It’s not just about getting a degree so you can get a job. It is about expanding your mind and being open to new opportunities. That is the fantastic thing about the University of Toronto. It gives you that."

Dr. Nutt’s critically acclaimed book,  Damned Nations: Greed, Guns, Armies and Aid,  is a #1 bestseller in Canada. Lewis Lapham declared it a “brave and necessary book”, while the Literary Review of Canada called it a “brilliant polemic.” Damned Nations is a bracing and uncompromising account of Dr. Nutt’s work in some of the most devastated regions of the world.

Nutt, who is a staff physician at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, was named one of Canada’s 25 Transformational Canadians by the Globe and Mail; Time magazine named her one of Canada’s Five Leading Activists; and the World Economic Forum recognized her as one of 200 Young Global Leaders. She is a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario.

Published Nov. 28, 2013.