SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - This year's Wise Woman for the North Slave region, Lyda Fuller, will be presented with her award next Monday.

Lyda Fuller: Excited to receive Wise Woman award. -

The award is given out annually by the Northwest Territories Status of Women Council.

"Well, it's very exciting," Fuller said. "It's always wonderful to be recognized for the work that you do."

Fuller has been the executive director of the Yellowknife YWCA for the past 14 years.

Her dedication to women's issues in the North is one of the reasons she was selected for the award, said Lorraine Phaneuf, executive director of the Northwest Territories Status of Women Council.

"She's been picked because she is a role model and has worked collaboratively with other NGOs and governments to improve the lives of women," Phaneuf said. "She participates in many communities to help reduce violence against women."

Fuller has been involved with the YWCA for the past 25 years. Prior to coming to Yellowknife, she worked with YWCAs in both Regina, Sask., and St. Thomas, Ont.

"I've been interested in women's issues and improving the status of women over that time period, that's what attracted me to the YWCA," she said. "Here particularly I found you have a real opportunity to make a difference in the North."

Fuller played an active role in establishing emergency protection orders for women in violent situations. In cooperation with the YWCA and the RCMP, women can now have violent partners removed from the home, which means they don't have to leave themselves.

"When the new legislation came up here in this territory around the Protection Against Family Violence Act, it talked abut women getting emergency protection orders and being able to keep the home," she said. "So I made a suggestion at a meeting that Alison McAteer House, which is the shelter which we operate, that we along with the RCMP do the emergency protection orders."

"Sometimes it's little things like making a suggestion."

Fuller's work with the YWCA is also helping to establish an anti-poverty strategy for the NWT, a first for the territory.

Collaborating with Alternatives North, the NWT Status of Women Council and other agencies, the YWCA is helping to provide information packages to the legislative assembly to establish the strategy.

"What we did as an agency is our board passed a resolution supporting a poverty reduction strategy so we had officially lent our organizational support to that, as well as providing copies of the homelessness research and other things that went into the package," Fuller said.

The 2011 annual meeting of Canadian YWCAs will take place in Yellowknife, said Fuller, which she hopes will give her a chance to show other members of the organization the uniqueness of working in the North.

"That will be my opportunity for the rest of the country to come here and see what it's like here and the things we do and the conditions we work on," she said.

Fuller will be presented with her award at the Great Hall of the legislative assembly.

She said her message to other women is simple.

"I'd like to encourage, especially young women - don't underestimate the power of one person to make change, don't ever underestimate that," she said.

Last year's winner was Lynn Brooks, former president of the NWT Status of Women Council.