Advisory Council 2024-2025
Niketa Peters, MA
Ancestral Knowledge Protector| Educator| Aunt| PoetBorn on the sacred land of the Lokono (Arawak) peoples, surrounded by many bodies of water and fertile lands, my relationship with water and the land was naturally formed. I spent my early years in the waters and forests, absorbing, experiencing, and feeling the teachings of the land, enveloping myself in the energies of all creation. My transition to Canada, coupled with the violence embedded in Western colonial education, created a shift in my relationship with creation. My colonial education earned me undergraduate and graduate degrees and certificates that remain unopened and under my bed. Given my experiences with colonial transgressions, my work is focused on political healing and revolutionary liberation. I lean on the teachings of my ancestors, waters, fires, nature, earth, and minerals to develop pedagogies of liberation and healing.Email: peters.niketa@outlook.comAmanda Buffalo, PhD
I am a community activist at heart and hold a Doctor of Education in Social Justice Education. I have centred my community role on supporting the resurgence and regeneration of Indigenous communities through working with communities to address violence and the impacts of hetero-patriarchy and settler-colonialism. I dedicate my time to supporting both community-based and global approaches to Indigenous people’s social, political, legal, and economic equity and equality, and am honoured to have had a community role in working directly with families of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2S+ people and survivors of violence. Though I am working to develop my skills as a connoisseur of tea, bannock, and drymeat, I still have much to learn. I am grateful to my many Aunties and Uncles who continue to support me in learning about my role(s) and responsibilities in passing on culture, tradition, and language. Kola.Email: a.buffalo@utoronto.ca
Caroline Shenaz Hossein, PhD
Dr. Caroline Shenaz Hossein is Associate Professor of Global Development at the University of Toronto Scarborough and cross-appointed to the graduate program of Political Science at the University of Toronto and Founder of Diverse Solidarity Economies (DISE) Collective. She holds an Ontario Early Researcher Award (2018-2025) and was previously funded by SSHRC (2017-2020). Hossein is board member to the International Association of Feminist Economics, advisor to Oxford University Press, editorial board member to the U.N. Task Force for the Social and Solidarity Economy, Kerala University’s Journal ‘Polity & Society’ and The Review of Black Political Economy. Hossein is the author of ‘Politicized Microfinance’ (2016), co-author of ‘Critical Introduction to Business and Society’ (2017); editor of ‘The Black Social Economy’ (2018), co-editor of ‘Community Economies in the Global South’ (2022) and ‘Beyond Racial Capitalism’ (2023) both by Oxford UP. Her forthcoming books are ‘The Banker Ladies’ by the U of Toronto Press and Africana Feminist Political Economy by Cambridge UP.She has held visiting professorships at Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia, University of Guyana, UWI St. Augustine, Trinidad and Jadavpur University, India and spent 2019 sabbatical in Malaysia. She has also held a U.S Fulbright Scholarship at the University of the West Indies, Mona Jamaica and Hossein has given keynote lectures in the US, Ireland, Jamaica, Norway, Sweden, India, the UK and Thailand. Prior to becoming an academic, she worked for 9 years in a number of global non-profits and 8 years as a self-employed consultant to the World Bank Group, UNDP, USAID, IRC, CIDA, IADB, and the Aga Khan Foundation.Email: caroline.hossein@utoronto.ca
Website: University of Toronto ScarboroughTwitter @carolinehossein @AfricanaEconomy
Founder: Africana Development & Feminist Political Economy
Glenda Mejia, PhD
Glenda is an educator, scholar, mum, daughter, sister, aunt and amiga. She was born in the ancestral lands of Náhuat people, known as El Salvador. She teaches in the field of migration/mobility/displacement, and Spanish language/culture studies at RMIT’s School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, recognising the university as a colonised spaced and unceded sovereignty of the Traditional Custodians of the Kulin Nations on which she lives, works and breathes. I extend that respect to Elders past, present and emerging as well as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples throughout Australia. My respect also extends to all Traditional Custodians of the lands, waters, fires, stones, animals, plants and skies where this is read. As a lifelonger learner, educator and scholar, Glenda is committed to un/re/learning and teaching by engaging and embodying a praxis of senti-pensante and liberation pedagogies. Her ethics, teaching, and work are inspired by Gloria Anzaldúa, bell hooks, Clelia O. Rodríguez, and Paulo Freire. She is currently working collaboratively on an arts-based community participatory practice titled ‘Storytelling displacement: Salvadoreans’ memories in Australia', while learning the language of her ancestors, Nahuatl, taught by knowledge holder Tamatchtiani Franco Huixtemi.
Email: glenda.mejia@rmit.edu.au
Website: RMIT UniversityPamela Lynne Chrisjohn
Born into the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe and Lenape people, in the Eastern woodland region of Ontario, Canada, Pamela Chrisjohn has strong ties to each of these diverse nations. Her home community of Onyota’a:ka (People of the Standing Stone) is located in southwestern Ontario. She did travel, living in Germany, Holland, Arizona, and B.C. before raising 5 children and one grandson on the Oneida Reservation. A traditionalist Pamela identifies as a part of the Ohkwa:li (bear) clan family of the Oneida Nation, within the Six Nations Confederacy (Haudenosaunee). Being from a matrilineal society Pamela has always felt her responsibilities as an Oneida woman are to unconditionally care for the family and nation. It is up to the women to ensure the children receive the teachings which are the original instructions from the creator. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy predates contact and is a governance based on maintaining peace and Pamela is committed to peaceful nation building. Artistic expression has always been very important to Pamela, she has been mainly self-taught but did attend The University of Western Ontario and University of Victoria (En’owkin Program) for Fine Arts. She has worked as an ambassador for Six Nations Tourism, was a photojournalist, a writer, and an eclectic visual artist throughout her lifetime. Pamela feels traditional indigenous arts and language are integral to our survival as nations and is using her artistic talents to share and express her identity. She presently teaching online painting and cultural identity with Anishinaabeg Outreach.Email: pamela.lynne.chrisjohn@gmail.comAquib S. Yacoob, MBA
Aquib S. Yacoob is a social entrepreneur and community organizer from a sugar plantation community in Guyana. His roots, marked by ancestral resilience, determination and survival, ignited a lifelong dedication to social change advocacy and world building. At 14, he began creating human rights campaigns with Amnesty International, later becoming a key leader at Women's March, mobilizing millions in the face of rising fascism. Responding to gun violence in his NYC community, Aquib partnered with a local organizer, transforming a local program into a $5B White House initiative. Now a Consortium and ROMBA Fellow at Rice University’s Business School, Aquib innovates sustainable financial systems for enduring social impact.Email: aquib@brownmanrunning.comErica Peña, MA - Educational Leader and Program Assistant
Education Specialist| Teacher| Community Organizer and Activist Email: erikapkalu@gmail.comJosephine Gabi, PhD
(She/Her/Hers) is a Reader in Education at Manchester Metropolitan University. Grounded in Black feminist thought, and antiracist praxis, she is dedicated to challenging disembodied pedagogy in the early year’s education and care and undoing forms of coloniality in curricula and relational encounters. Josephine embraces solidarity as a tool of resistance to the matrix of domination as a critical orientation towards liberated futures. Her work advances co-creation as a liberatory pedagogy that facilitates relational agency. Josephine is a Senior Advisor of the UK Advising and Tutoring (UKAT) and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AdvanceHE). She is the co-editor of Who Are You Without Colonialism?: Pedagogies of Liberation, a collective of voicEmail: j.gabi@mmu.ac.ukc.k. samuels, Honorary MA
If you must own me,
Own the young warrior of the forest hearing God.
And manage those ripples.
If you must sit me
at altars of identity,
place me as one creating places of peace
together.
I am a poet, musician, and farmer finding peace relating with land.
My ancestors trod Taino land.
I am trodding Algonquin land.
The journey is painful.
What is this pain I carry everywhere? A wound. A separation. A wound which heals and opens again. This wound heals through words, music, farming and forest. Through water, fire, earth and air. This wound opens through connection and relation. Wholeness ripped apart by being pulled in many directions. A painful way to define community.
Wholeness Ripped Apart By Being Pulled In Many Directions.
Words are my water. They clean wounds, removing visible dirt, revealing damage.
Music is my fire. It boils my blood. Removing the chance of infection.
Farming is my earth. My grounding. A settling into current space and time. Scab making. Repair. Growth. Expansion..
Forest is my air. My freedom. They are host to timelines beyond what I call ‘my life’. They hold truth.
So as I connect and relate
and begin to separate
again
being pulled in many directions
I manage the pain
through words
music
farming
and forest.
And make shareable maps to navigate surroundings, creating places of sanctuary, places of peace.https://manfromjambican.bandcamp.com/music
https://jambican.ca/en
Instagram: @jambican
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YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEDtNMrdOsMk9r_G7YmPMjw