Reimagine Health

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 in 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.

Alia is a social entrepreneur and lecturer at Simon Fraser University where she teaches Sustainable Innovation and Introduction to Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Passionate about the fields of sustainability, poverty alleviation and impact investing, Alia is the Founder of Luv The Grub an emerging social enterprise that operates at a number of levels in the food system by capturing produce seconds that would otherwise go to waste, hires newcomer refugees and immigrants through a paid employment training program and produces delicious chutneys and spreads for the local market. In addition, Alia is also the Co-Founder of Liv & Lola; a fair trade home decor business which works with artisans in rural areas of Nicaragua, Guatemala and Thailand where employment opportunities are scarce in an effort to lift them, their families and their communities out of poverty.

Halah is a graduate student in clinical counselling with a keen interest in the biopsychosocial and spiritual aspects of addiction and recovery. She’s spent the past few years in the biotech startup world as well as working in her communities to lower barriers to epistemologically relevant mental health care. 

Halah is grateful to live on the territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ / sel̓íl̓witulh nations. Halah always makes time to read, cultivate her love of languages and be near the ocean.

Gaaysiigad hín uu díi kya’áang, ga yáalaast gúust uu díi k’wáalaagang, díi gwaayk’aang hlk’yáan ñ’ust’áan uu íijang. 

I grew up in the sands of Brunette Creek in New Westminster, where I learned to skip stones, catch fish, and tread lightly on unceded land of the Katzie, Kwantlen, Qayqayt, sc̓əwaθenaɁɬ təməxʷ, səl̓ilwətaɁɬ təməxʷ, S’ólh Téméxw, Stz’uminus, and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm. The creek bed and city have been a connecting place for thousands of years, and I work to feel a part of those connections.

Those connections have been best felt when organizing in community around sense of place, isolation, language preservation, heritage reform, and Indigenous sovereignty. These connections have also woven themselves into roles and opportunities: as Curator and Co-Founder of Kudoz, Director of Organize BC, and Director of Populous Map.

I learned to use my Masters of Anthropology to document these connections, but I honour and evaluate them by sinking back into the creek’s soft sand. Reciprocity in community and home are what I innovate for.