Building the future of workers A profile on 2011 DiverseCity Fellow Alumna Jenn Miller. The future of work can bring up sometimes scary images of robots replacing humans everywhere we turn. Concerned with how these changes will impact our cities and communities, organizations across the region are trying to come to terms with how to […]
ELN Member Spotlight: Marchael Cunanan
ELN Executive Committee member Marchael Cunanan spends his days working as an Accountant at Pivotal, a tech software company. Passionate about building up the next generation of leaders, Marchael has worked on youth engagement and civic involvement with Peel Children and Youth Initiative, Western University Student Success, and the ELN. When he’s not looking at […]
Apply to be an ELN Co-Chair!
Do you love your city and want to be a part of making it even better? Apply now to be an Emerging Leaders Network (ELN) Co-Chair where you’ll lead the ELN Executive Committee to grow and strengthen the impact of the ELN. The ELN is a program run by CivicAction and the CivicAction Leadership Foundation […]
Fellows in Focus: Ritesh Kotak
Coding Inclusion A profile on 2015-2016 DiverseCity Fellow Alumnus Ritesh Kotak. For Ritesh Kotak, the DiverseCity Fellows program changed the course of his career. When he joined the Fellows program in 2015, Ritesh was a Research and Innovation Strategist at the Toronto Police Service, working on the incorporation of technologies and cyber security in the […]
ELN Member Spotlight: Cheryll Case
Cheryll Case is the founding principal of CP Planning, a ground breaking urban planning firm that digs deep into addressing the urban conditions that affect access to housing, work, and play. She specializes in designing for inclusive conversations that build relationships between various industries within the non-profit, private, and public sectors. To facilitate conversation, she […]
500 people to attend CivicAction summit to look for solutions to GTHA’s problems
Published on CBCWritten by Haweya Fadal Five hundred people from various sectors will converge on the Art Gallery of Ontario Monday to look for solutions to some of the biggest urban challenges facing the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. Rising and established leaders from the business, government, academic and community sectors will attend Canvas, CivicAction’s 2019 Summit. […]
NEWS: Unsung hero: Rupal Shah helps newcomer artists find community
Published on LocalLove by Charlotte D’arcy By Charlotte D’arcy When she was just a teenager, Rupal Shah decided she was going to have a career in the theatre. “It just brought me so much joy and motivation—I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” she says. “When I look back on it, it was about making something […]
Dishing about diversity’s key ingredient: inclusion
Written by Pranav Sidhwani Pranav Sidhwani is an ELN member and works as a management consultant and sees cities as his natural habitat. Connect with Pranav. As a newcomer to Canada, I’ve been looking to build my community and meet people who share not only my concerns for the world we live in, but also […]
ELN Member Spotlight: Mike Brooks
2019 DiverseCity Fellow Mike Brooks provides expert advice to decision makers on supporting positive development for children and youth across Ontario as a Senior Policy Analyst with the Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services. Mike helped catalyze efforts to move the needle on education and employment outcomes for youth through the Collective Impact […]
Let’s Get Rooted
Written by Shiva Mazrouei Shiva Mazrouei is Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Doctors Without Borders Canada and is a passionate equity and inclusion advocate as well as an active ELN member. Want to know more? Connect with Shiva. — In true millennial fashion, I have moved several times between cities for work, which had me […]
ELN Member Spotlight: Janelle Hinds
2019 DiverseCity Fellow Janelle Hinds combined her experience in technology with her passion for youth civic engagement to create Helping Hands—a platform that helps youth volunteer and get civically engaged while building career skills. As someone with a passion for helping young people become more civically engaged, Janelle uses Twitter as platform of choice to […]
Here’s what in store for the ELN in 2019
We’re off and running in 2019! It’s a whole new year and our plans are bigger, bolder, and better. First off, thanks so much to all those network members who braved the weather and came out to our 2019 Snowcial at The Gladstone Hotel. The event name was way more apt than we had expected […]
NEWS: CivicAction program aims to improve diversity of Toronto-region boardrooms
By Jason MillerPublished in the Toronto Star Biju Pappachan is focused on breaking down the barriers stymieing diversity in Toronto boardrooms and government, and a civic engagement organization is bringing him together with 29 others on a mission to do just that. “This program is trying to bring those diverse voices to the decision-making and […]
NEWS: Hamiltonian chosen for DiverseCity Fellows cohort
Published in The Hamilton Spectator “Hamilton’s own Daniel Lynn is among this year’s 30 hand-picked members of the DiverseCity Fellows cohort who will be working on a unique “civic MBA” to change the shape and face of leadership, to more fairly reflect the diversity of our cities. The DiverseCity Fellows cohort is an initiative of […]
NEWS RELEASE: CivicAction Activates 30 New DiverseCity Fellows to Change the Face of Leadership
TORONTO (February 6, 2019) – Toronto’s coat of arms may say, “Diversity Our Strength,” but when comes to who sits at our regional decision-making tables, a diversity of perspectives, identities, and experiences is missing. To breathe new life into the greater Toronto region’s future, the CivicAction Leadership Foundation today welcomed a new DiverseCity Fellows cohort […]
Spotlight on 9 inspiring leaders for Black History Month
They’re bold. They’re driven. They’re talented. And they’re relentless. This Black History Month, meet 9 inspiring leaders from the ELN network who are driving real change in their communities and in our region as a whole. Brandon Hay Brandon Hay is the founder of the Black Daddies Club, where since 2007 he has engaged over […]
ELN Member Spotlight: Sean MacKay
ELN Communications Lead Sean Mackay is a digital marketing and communications professional working in Toronto’s real estate industry. Sean works as Managing Director at Livabl, an online publication covering stories that help home-buyers better understand real estate market trends. In his spare time, Sean is a mentor with the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC), […]
Your year with the ELN.
When they said time flies, they forgot to mention that it flies on rocket fuel. It seems like just yesterday we met for the first time to map out our vision for 2018. Now we’re already planning out how we can make next year’s programming even bigger and better. Our amazing ELN community has made […]
ELN Member Spotlight: Sarah Wardrope
ELN executive committee member. Event management guru. Proud Hamiltonian. Sarah Wardrope is one of The Hammer’s best. When she’s not strategizing and executing key corporate and digital communication projects at Hamilton Health Sciences, Sarah is finding ways to bring together her fellow rising leaders; most recently, she served as co-chair of HIVEX, an annual conference […]
ELN Member Spotlight: Shazlin Rahman
Fresh on the heels of October as Islamic Heritage Month, our ELN spotlight for November features Shazlin Rahman, a prominent advocate in the Muslim community. As a communications professional, Shazlin approaches all of her work from an equity-based, inclusive lens. Currently she works as the Stakeholder Engagement Specialist at Inspirit Foundation, is lending a hand […]
The big three: Transit, healthcare, and safety
Written by: Yiming, Age 16, from Centre for Immigrant and Community Services Walking down the streets of downtown Toronto and watching people from every social class hurrying by each other to their fulfilled and busy life can be seen as unique and astonishing. The clear blue sky, the fresh green belt, all kinds of fancy cars […]
Working with corporate Canada to reduce poverty
Written by: Dave D’Oyen, from CivicAction’s Emerging Leaders Network Toronto has again been labelled the child poverty capital of Canada. Housing has become unaffordable, even for dual income families. Individuals with lower incomes are being forced out of the downtown, some even out of the city. The challenges are many. My vision of Toronto is a […]
Starting each day with a shower, coffee, and a vision for Hamilton
Written by: Dave Heidebrecht, from CivicAction’s Emerging Leaders Network Most mornings of my life follow the same routine. Early alarm. Quick shower. Hot coffee. Clean clothes. Off and running. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Recently, however, my morning routine changed. In September 2017, my wife and I welcomed our son into the world—he is hands down the […]
Creating paths to jobs that pursue passion and pay the bills
Written by: Renaldo Brown, from Citizen Empowerment Project In the city that we live in today, the system is sets us up for failure and every year this cycle repeats. For both parents and children who grow up in the urban areas of Toronto, life has always been difficult. A parent’s duty is to go […]