peter j. dalglish, BA, LL.B. '83, LL.D. (Hon)

Service to humanity of the highest order distinguishes Peter Dalglish as recipient of the 1989 Weldon Award for Unselfish Public Service.  He is recognized internationally and his name is a house-hold word across Canada for his creative and constructive efforts in international humanitarian relief efforts in the Third World.

Peter Dalglish received his LL.B in 1983 from Dalhousie Law School after graduating from Stanford University, California with a B.A. degree.  Following his law degree he articled in Vancouver with Ladner Downs, then with Stewart, MacKeen & Convert in Halifax and was called to the Nova Scotia Bar in 1985.  He served as special assistant first to the federal Minister of Labour, The Honourable Gerald A. Regan, in 1980-81, and in 1984 to the Prime Minister, The Right Honourable John Turner.

Since his school days at Upper Canada College, Peter Dalglish involved himself with volunteer activities assisting children.  In Toronto he was a counselor with the Rose Park Inner City Program, founder of an Upper Canada College – Ontario Science Centre project and a volunteer at the Ontario Crippled Children’s Centre.  At Stanford he was a research assistant at Boystown Center and a volunteer at Stanford Children’s Hospital. 

In 1984, with friend John Godfrey, then President of the University of King’s College, he co-founded a major famine relief effort, the Ethiopian Airlift 1984.  From this, the Degahbur Adopt-A-Village Program for long-term assistance was developed.  After completing his articles in 1985, Peter Dalglish returned to Africa as a United Nations World Food Program coordinator on the Chad-Sudan border and then moved to Khartoum, Sudan with UNICEF.

To enable Khartoum’s Child victims of war and famine to achieve self respect and independence, he founded a technical school later funded by UNICEF.  Utilizing the street knowledge they already possessed he also organized these children into a same-day bicycle courier service.  This project became a self-sustaining business and prototype for similar projects for Street Kids International, the organization which Peter Dalglish founded and operated from Toronto.  Street Kids International also involved itself in other related projects, notably innovative methods of educating disadvantaged Third World children about AIDS.

A truly caring and committed activist for social change on a global scale, Peter Dalglish has put aside a law career to pursue social justice for the world’s children.  The pursuit of this goal, and his public service achievements thus far in improving the education, living conditions, life skills and health of these most disadvantaged children, make him a very special winner of the Weldon Award for Unselfish Public Service.