Our Team

Business Operations Lead

Asma has immense experience in administrative work and has built her career in a variety of work fields such as Accounting, Budgeting, Project Management, Human Resources, and Marketing. She started her career with UN Relief & Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, in Gaza. In Canada, she has worked for organizations such as the Kidney Foundation and for the Living Arts Centre, Mississauga.

Asma considers herself fortunate to have worked with international organizations making a difference in peoples’ lives, supporting their safety and wellbeing.

Director

Sabina has over 20 years of international experience wearing and juggling various hats for social justice and human rights causes, ranging from operations and relationships to advocacy and community engagement, and culminating in systems-level strategy design. Her journey has taught her that when it comes to crafting innovative and collaborative solutions to complex problems, few things matter as much as relationships and an assets-based approach. Sabina has experience in network weaving and strategic collaborations to promote place-based community development and poverty reduction, notably at East Scarborough Storefront and Making Room Community Arts. Holding a BA in Psychology from Northwestern University, Sabina’s professional and creative focus is on systems change, strategic visioning, and inspiring others to see their full potential.

Sabina believes that when everyone commits to authenticity and community, great mountains can be moved.

Co-Founder

Tanya is known for her insatiable drive to make real and meaningful change happen. As our lead researcher and evaluator, she has a true passion for bringing data-driven insight in the fight for social justice. She’s a natural born problem-solver with a gift for navigating complexity and leading emergent strategy. For more than 20 years, Tanya has worked across the public, private and philanthropic sectors on a wide range of issues and initiatives that promote greater equity, inclusion and wellbeing for all.

Tanya’s great love is Theory of Change. She is ready to share with you her energy and enthusiasm for challenging assumptions, disrupting the status quo, and testing out new hypotheses as you pursue greater social impact.

Associate

What inspires CJ the most is working towards building a fair, equitable, and inclusive society. They want to be able to look back and feel their contribution made a difference in the world. They have 20+ years experience supporting adults with disabilities both in post-secondary and developmental services sectors. They are also a sought-after statistics and math tutor for students of all ages. CJ is known for being equally as genuine, compassionate, and insightful as they are rigorous and meticulous in their attention to detail.

Whether touring on their motorcycle or paddling the local rivers, CJ is always looking for the next story to tell. They have visited all of Canada’s provinces and territories.

Associate

Nour is a human rights advocate, researcher, and lifelong learner. She values diversity, collaboration, and community empowerment. As a refugee health researcher, she has experience conducting health equity and global health research, partnering with vulnerable refugee and migrant communities, conducting data analyses, and engaging in knowledge translation. As a community advocate, she is passionate about centering the voices and needs of marginalized groups and building community capacity to dismantle policies and systems that perpetuate inequities. As a racialized first-generation immigrant, she is dedicated to using her intersecting identities of marginalization and privilege to advance equity and develop solutions that are equitable, inclusive, and culturally responsive. She recently started a Masters of Public Health with the hopes of enacting meaningful and necessary systemic change. 

Associate

Dylan is determined to merge mathematics and humanity. He believes that numbers are a powerful tool in understanding and doing social good, and can be an integral force in uniting and inspiring action. Although a numbers wizard, he can just as often be found indulging in ancient texts. After all, he believes there is no better way to understand and challenge our present than by exploring the lessons of our past.

In understanding complexity, he takes inspiration from one of the greatest generals in antiquity: “Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.” I shall either find a way or make one.

Director

Eve is a values-based leader, centred in relationships. She behaves with intent, authentically connecting with others by being her whole self & creating safe spaces. Eve believes these are essential to being a catalyst for social justice & change. She is a lifelong learner. Aware of her position of privilege, she deepens her understanding of the complex nature of intersectionality & how she benefits from the systemic oppression of others.

Activated through 20 years of public service, Eve’s passion is equitable improvement to community wellbeing through relationship based, strategic, anti-oppression systems thinking for social impact. Her strengths include multi-sector human design, communication, community development, engagement, & facilitation paired with research & evaluation methodology & evidence informed system disruption & improvement.

Eve loves to buy local, explore nature with her family, read on her Kindle, get out of her head & into her body through dance, & sing all things.

Design Associate

Corey has understood and learned many disciplines of design as well as the different forms of media the world has to offer. Whether it be in the physical world or the digital world, and the human language or internet language, Corey has it covered.

As a graphic design graduate from George Brown College, he is proficient in creating small and large format print media, static and motion graphics as well as having knowledge in HTML and CSS that he put in to display during his time as a designer in 12thirteen. He is also very comfortable with handling computer hardware and electronics.

In his spare time, Corey can be found mastering his footwork in longboard dancing, watching anime, or challenging his reflexes in PC games or puzzle/strategy games. Feel free to challenge him!

Associate

Elaine has experience leading and implementing a wide range of complex strategic, programmatic and quality assurance processes to support leadership, staff, communities and children in international development and humanitarian aid programs since 2002. To date her expertise has covered on-going learning and improvement in 30 countries across 15 sectors, including gender equality and youth.

Elaine is passionate about developing systems that ensure people have right-sized information to trigger change making decisions. She gets a high from experiencing with others the “a-ha” moment that tips the balance for transformation at the individual, community and/or systems level.

Researcher

Amanda is a Queer South Asian woman, who has lived in Canada her whole life. She is a recent graduate of York University with a BA in Global Health and a Specialized Honours in Health Policy, Management, and Systems. She finds that her intersectional background draws her towards issues of equity and access. Amanda’s fields of passion include Mental Health and Addictions, Immigration, and Queer Representation.

In her free time, she can be found listening to music, writing, or conversing with people – as she firmly believes we can learn something from everyone!

Design Associate

Vichai brings over fifteen years of professional design experience in nonprofit, public, private sector, arts and cultural organizations. At Openly and formerly at 12thirteen Design, he leads and collaborates his creative talents to a broad range of projects in print, digital media and illustration. He had worked for local advertising agencies in Bangkok, Thailand prior coming to Canada.

Passionate about the visual arts from an early age, Vichai leaned how to draw before how to write. He understands the power of visual communication and knows how to strategically apply abstract ideas to get the massage across in a clear, concise, and effective visuals in his design work.

Vichai holds an honour diploma with major in Communication Design from George Brown College, School of Design, where he won a portfolio entrance scholarship award. He has an Arts and Crafts diploma from Poh-Chang Academy of Arts, Rajamangala University and a graduate of College Fine Arts in Thailand.

Associate

Jeremy has a Masters of Urban Planning and a Bachelors of Social Work and is a Registered Social Worker (RSW). He has worked in various frontline roles and in the public health sector. He is experienced in the world of harm reduction and has a strong understanding of the intricacies of the government sector. His primary skill sets include program management, coordination, capacity building, quality improvement and data management.

His passion is to use his knowledge, skills and experience to advocate for priority populations by using an interdisciplinary approach. He always finds a way to intersect his two professional backgrounds. He also has a true understanding and respect for community and grassroots work.

He is a proud member of the queer community and uses he/him pronouns. In his spare time, he enjoys tending to his many plants, streaming a musical soundtrack, travelling and recently started knitting.

Associate

Jillian is a community arts lover who has worked with a range of organizations and foundations across Canada to build community and shift philanthropy. Jillian has a Masters of Social Work from the University of Toronto.

Her volunteer time is spent helping grow La Ruche D’Art de NDG, a community project using the arts to build community in Montreal, Quebec. She is also the Community Engagement Lead for The Philanthropist Journal, a journal dedicated to the nonprofit sector in Canada.

Associate

Neb completed a graduate program at Carleton University in Public Policy and Program Evaluation. Since, Neb has worked as a dedicated, passionate professional, with almost a decade of experience in diverse leadership, health, and community-building roles. The majority of those roles focused on using project management, facilitation, and evaluation to build programs and services that address barriers to wellbeing faced by diverse populations.

In her free time, Neb enjoys spending time with family, baking, or her newest venture, learning to play the guitar.