Meet the Team

Ilhan is a Somali-Canadian whose parents’ migration journey brought her to these unceded Coast Salish Lands at a very young age. Stemming from her family’s experience of being racialized newcomers, Ilhan has been passionate about addressing social and health inequities and developed a commitment to social justice. Having spent some time in community activism, youth work and health promotion in the Lower Mainlands of Vancouver, Ilhan then moved to Toronto to pursue her Masters in Public Health and gain a critical intersectional analysis on what promotes vulnerability to health inequities. She has recently returned to BC and is ecstatic to get involved in health equity and community work. When she’s not working, you can find her embarking on solo travels somewhere in the world.

Miranda joined the growing Consulting Services team at RADIUS in 2021. She is an experienced engagement specialist and project manager, from the tuberculosis and housing crises in Nunavut to campus action on the climate emergency. She is passionate about bringing together community, stakeholders, and decision-makers to make more people-centred, equitable and creative decisions, projects and policies. With a Masters in strategic management and planning from University College Dublin and ten years working in and consulting for public sector organizations, her interest is working with the messiness of human behaviour (emotions, power structures, etc.) in social innovation and civic leadership and engagement, and facilitating safe spaces for tough conversations and for underrepresented voices to shape their futures. Her worldview and ways of being have been rooted and influenced as a second-generation immigrant, her lineage of strong Chinese matriarchs, and as a settler born on Algonquin Anishinabe territory and spending the last 15 years on unceded Coast Salish territory.

When not working, she is an avid noodle-eater, runner, road tripper, outdoor adventurer with her little family, and founder and seamstress of a small clothing project nooi (a play on ‘neui’ 女, the Cantonese word for daughter) raising funds for community organizations. She is also the co-chair and board member of the hua foundation, a non-profit working towards racial equity and building civic engagement and capacity in the East Asian diaspora to work towards social change.

Nada El Masry (she/her) is a Libyan-born Palestinian who came to the unceded land of the Coast Salish peoples just over 10 years ago. Due to her life experiences and education, Nada has fostered a deep passion for social justice and has shaped her life goals around values rooted in that field. She has been working with and engaging newcomers for several years, and currently manages the Refugee Livelihood Lab, which aims to build social, economic, and political capital for racialized refugee and migrant communities.

Nada is pursuing a Master’s in Equity Studies in Education at SFU, and was recipient of a 2019 BC Anti-Racism Award. She has also been nominated by the Future of Good as a 2020 Top 21 Founders to Watch, and received a 2018 Leadership Award from Voices of Muslim Women. In her free time, Nada enjoys playing and watching soccer.

Born and raised in Ghana, West Africa, Raphael has over five years of experience managing and coordinating community development projects such as Hope For Life, an initiative he co-founded in 2015 that aims to provide mentorship, motivation, and networking opportunities for students in deprived areas in Ghana.

Raphael was the youth program coordinator for DIVERSEcity, where he created youth-led settlement programs for newcomer and refugee youth with a trauma-informed approach, overseeing the growth of the portfolio.

In 2019, Raphael worked with RADIUS’ Health Promotion Lab as a research and evaluation officer. He coordinated the work of five health-promoting ventures and supported the Lab with evidence-informed research and analysis, helping to create a theory of change and evaluation plan.Raphael believes that systems change can effectively be achieved with a community-driven, multi-faceted, and inclusive approach that centres equity.

He holds a master’s degree in Political Science from SFU, specializing in public policy and international relations, and in his leisure time, loves to watch and play sports, especially soccer, basketball, and table tennis.

I am passionate about building a world where every person has access to opportunities to better their life while becoming an integral part of a vibrant and sustainable community and an innovative economy. My work focuses on equity-centred approaches to social innovation, impact investing, venture incubation and acceleration, and capacity strengthening. I also explore ways organizations can best structure themselves for listening and collaboration. In these contexts, I have experience working with capital providers, nonprofits, universities, social enterprises, and accelerators across North America and internationally.

My journey to grow and learn led me from my home in the vibrant city of Delhi in Northern India to North America. Since then, my migration journey has taken me to many different communities and brought me to the present, where I reside on the unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples. I am grateful for the knowledge that those around me are willing to share to help me broaden my perspective on the world in all its brilliance and juxtapositions.

Véronik (elle/she/her) is a strategic thinker with heart—bringing clarity and care to every conversation, relationship, and decision. Her leadership is recognized as rooted in vulnerability, creativity, and a fierce commitment to justice.

With 15 years of experience in strategy and organizational development, team leadership and governance, fundraising and partnerships, and programmatic design, management, and evaluation, Véronik brings a powerful blend of strategic insight and relational leadership. She understands the complexity of leading change and, as such, has thrived supporting the impact making of dozens of systems change initiatives spanning food security, migrant justice, and healthcare equity.

As Co-Director of RADIUS, she helps build the kind of environment where bold ideas and deep care thrive. She is a listener, problem solver, funding go-getter, creative convener, and strategic guide. She helps nurture the “nest” where her team can laugh, cry, and take on the big work of transforming systems. She sees the big picture AND the human heart, altogether bringing strategy, soul, and systems thinking to every challenge.

Véronik holds a BSc. in Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, a MSc. in Ecosystem Functioning, and a Diploma in Business Analysis. She is a mother, daughter, sister, and friend. She is a heterosexual, cisgender, non-visibly disabled, francophone, white woman of French and Scottish ancestry. She currently resides as an uninvited guest on the territories of the Squamish people, where she finds happiness in growing food and cooking it for the many solidarity and family dinners that take place around her dinner table.

Born and raised in Dubai (UAE), Yara is a Palestinian refugee who had felt detached from her ‘home’ in the Gaza Strip for the longest time. Now, having spent years contemplating and unlearning colonial narratives, she considers the meaning of statelessness, as well as how systems of power co-opt and shape refugee experiences. Prior to settling on unceded Coast Salish lands, Yara worked at the Delma Institute in Abu Dhabi as a MENA research analyst and as the deputy advisor and project coordinator for the UAE Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development. She completed her MA in International Studies at Simon Fraser University, where she was a Researcher for the Centre for Comparative Muslim Studies. In her spare time, Yara enjoys reading sci-fi, listening to heavy metal, and walking for long hours to nowhere in particular.