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Mercedes Sharpe Zayas and Ana Teresa Portillo,
Building a Movement for Community Benefits in Parkdale
Mercedes Sharpe Zayas is the Workforce Planning Coordinator for the Parkdale People’s Economy, a network of over 30 community-based organizations and hundreds of community members organizing towards decent work, shared wealth, and equitable development in Parkdale.
Ana Teresa Portillo works in popular education and grass roots housing justice in the community of Parkdale. She currently holds the position of Community Benefits organizer at Parkdale Peoples’ Economy and Rooming House tenant organizer at Parkdale Activity-Recreation Centre.
Deborah Barndt, Earth to Tables: A Short Film Series
and Discussion on Food Sovereignty
Deborah Barndt is a retired Professor and former Coordinator of the Community Arts Practice (CAP) Program in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto. She is the author of Tangled Routes: Women, Work, and Globalization on the Tomato Trail, Second Edition and editor of Wild Fire: Art as Activism.
Laylo Atakhodjaeva and Shabeeb Hasan, Road to Zero Waste
Laylo Atakhodjaeva and Shabeeb Hasan lead Road to Zero Waste, a local non-profit organization that works to address these problems by running workshops about food waste in various neighbourhoods and community spaces. Our goal is to change the way Canadians think about food waste, and to reduce food waste in Canada more quickly and efficiently.
Scott Leon, Inclusionary Zoning Now!
Scott Leon is a researcher and policy professional with the Wellesley Institute. He has worked as a housing researcher with the Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership at the University of Toronto, and as an economist with the Ontario Ministry of Finance. At McMaster University Scott worked with the Austerity Research Group on research examining changes in the Canadian labour market.
Elena Ostanel, Right to City: Community Planning
in Barcelona and Bologna
Elena Ostanel is a Marie Sklowdoska Curie Research Fellow based at Iuav, University of Venice, and currently collaborates with the Neighborhood Change Research Partnership in Toronto. Since February 2018, she has focused her research on Parkdale, and how this community is organizing against the negative effects of neighbourhood change. Elena is a researcher and practitioner of urban planning and community engagement, as well as a former city counsellor in Padua, Italy.
Emily Rondel, Toronto's Amazing Bird Life
Emily Rondel is TRCA's Community Engagement Coordinator, and for the past 7 years has served as Toronto Projects Lead for Bird Studies Canada.
Aida Mas Baghaie, Exploring Neighbourhood Change: From Gentrification to Community Control
Aida Mas Baghaie is a Master of Environmental Studies (Planning Program) candidate at York University. Her research focuses on building more equitable cities through community-based participatory planning processes. Aida has also been involved with community bike shops and bike co-ops for 5 years, and believes that fostering equity in active transportation requires putting tools in the hands of the community.
Jim Loney, The Radical History of
the Catholic Worker Community In Parkdale
Jim Loney is a Parkdale Resident and Canadian peace activist, who worked for several years with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq and Palestine.
Judith Mintz, Decolonizing Your Yoga Practice
Judith Mintz is a multidisciplinary researcher of gender, equity, diversity and inclusion policy in workforce and health spaces. She holds a PhD in Women and Gender Studies from York University. She has been a yoga instructor and shiatsu therapist since 1998.
Ben Losman and Teresa Salazar, The Work: Unpacking Masculinity and Patriarchy
Teresa Salazar is a family therapist with experience working with assaulted women and abusive men and women.
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Ben Losman is an anti-oppressive educator and communications specialist. He facilitates a Partner Assault Response (PAR) program through Counterpoint Counselling and Educational Co-operative, where he leads men convicted of domestic violence charges through a transformative education process. He also coordinates communications for the Canadian Community Economic Development Network.
Nandini Bagchee, Counter Institution: Activist Estates
on NYC's Lower East Side
Nandini Bagchee is an Associate Professor at the Spitzer School of Architecture at CCNY (CUNY) and principal of Bagchee Architects. Her research focuses on activism in architecture and the ways in which ground-up collaborative building practices provide an alternative medium for the creation of public space. Her built-work and writing has been published in the New York Times, Interiors Now, Urban Omnibus and the Journal of Architectural Education.
John Schaffter, Multiparty Negotiation
John Schaffter has experience and training negotiation, mediation and conflict management in the not for profit sector and at the City of Toronto He studied at Harvard Negotiation Program and the Canadian International Institute of Applied Negotiation.
