Our team brings together people and organizations working in community arts, HIV and harm reduction, adult education, youth organizing, community-based or engaged research, anti-racist social movements, Indigenous Sovereignty, disability justice and more.
Over the last three years, we have gathered and shared knowledge about our facilitation practices, built trust, learned from one another, and leaned into difficult conversations. We have held interviews, focus groups, retreats, and co-developed audio-visual materials such as cellphilms, podcasts, collages, and web-resources to support emerging and experienced community-engaged facilitators working across sectors, fields, and communities.
Pedagogies of Community Engagement Collective
Ally Crockford
LinkedInAlly Crockford (they/she) is the National Coordinator at Righting Relations, with over 15 years of experience in community-based facilitation, strategic communications, project and program management, and nonprofit governance. They have worked across continents and sectors, from open knowledge advocacy in Scotland to gender-based violence prevention in Ottawa, always seeking to challenge power imbalances and embed equity into institutional structures such as universities, cultural heritage organizations, and nonprofits.
Andrea Vela-Alarcón
@una_chullachaqui, @its.allegra, WebsiteI am a brown settler in Tsí T’karòn:to, originally from the Abya Yala rainforest territory (Peruvian Amazon). As a community educator, I root my practice in anticolonial approaches and feminist care ethics, facilitating spaces for critical conversations on ecological survival. For over a decade, I have worked with communities through popular education, cultural production, and storytelling, centering refusal and resistance to extractive capitalism while prioritizing joy, play, and care.
I hold an MA in Adult Education and Community Development (Women & Gender Studies) from the University of Toronto and am currently a PhD candidate in Communication, New Media, and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. My research and creative work unsettle colonial, patriarchal, and capitalist narratives of extraction.
Alongside academia, I work as an illustrator, collaborating with organizations and projects to create playful imagery. More at isallegra.com or @its.allegra.
Angie Aranda
Angie Aranda has an extensive background in partnership development, programming, and communications. She holds a Double Honours BA from York University in Film & Video and Communication Studies and is currently Senior Manager, Arts and Community Development at Toronto Arts Foundation.
Angie has contributed to the development of equity-centred initiatives that strengthen Toronto’s creative ecosystem. She co-designed ArtWorksTO: Skills for a Creative Future, which has since expanded to include Newcomer and Indigenous streams and lead the creation of the Community Arts Award and RBC Newcomer Spotlight Program.
In her current role, Angie supports membership design and community-based research focused on inclusion and access in the arts. Her upcoming work explores AI and the arts, with a focus on how emerging technologies may shape the future of work in the creative sector.
Annie Chau
LinkedIn, @anniechau.bsky.socialI am a brown settler in Tsí T’karòn:to, originally from the Abya Yala rainforest territory (Peruvian Amazon). As a community educator, I root my practice in anticolonial approaches and feminist care ethics, facilitating spaces for critical conversations on ecological survival. For over a decade, I have worked with communities through popular education, cultural production, and storytelling, centering refusal and resistance to extractive capitalism while prioritizing joy, play, and care.
I hold an MA in Adult Education and Community Development (Women & Gender Studies) from the University of Toronto and am currently a PhD candidate in Communication, New Media, and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. My research and creative work unsettle colonial, patriarchal, and capitalist narratives of extraction.
Alongside academia, I work as an illustrator, collaborating with organizations and projects to create playful imagery. More at isallegra.com or @its.allegra.
Asli Mahdi
Asli Mahdi (she/her) is a Black Muslim researcher of Somali descent. She obtained her BA in Anthropology and MA in Human Geography from Carleton University, as well as her SSW from Algonquin College. Her research interests vary from cultural and medical anthropology, ethnography, therapeutic landscapes and health equity and literacy. She has worked in the HIV sector for nearly five years, with a focus on HIV education and prevention for African, Caribbean and Black women. She is an advocate for africentric and arts-based approaches to practice and research.
Outside of her work, she is a writer and poet, and her poems have been published in The Offing, Room Magazine, The Drinking Gourd, flo. literary magazine, Obsidian: Literature & Arts in the African Diaspora, and have been featured on CBC’s All in a Day.
Casey Burkholder
@joy_lab.mtlCasey Burkholder (she/her) is a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Social Justice in Youth and Child Studies and an Associate Professor at Concordia University's Department of Education. Her research blends art, activism, and participatory media-making—especially with 2SLGBTQIA+ youth, families, and educators—using creative methods like cellphilms, zines, collage, and archival projects to advance social justice and queer joy inside and outside of schools. As the director of the JOY Lab (the Queer & Joyful Worldmaking Lab), she leads a Canada Research Chair–funded initiative that collaborates with 2SLGBTQIA+ communities through art, media-making, and public outreach to resist rising anti-queer rhetoric and policies in Canada. She has also co-founded the Fredericton Feminist Film Collective and leads participatory projects such as Pride/Swell+ and SexualityNB.
Erin Howley
LinkedInErin Howley is an adult educator, community-engaged facilitator, and artist. She is influenced by 15 years of frontline work spanning the US and Canada, collaborating through education and research with communities at the forefront of criminal justice and drug policy reform. Her creative practice activates material history to expose the social intimacies that lie at the core of public policy.
Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco
@i.franciscoFrancisco Ibáñez-Carrasco, PhD, a Canadian-Chilean public health professor and social scientist, has lived with HIV since 1986 and transformed that experience into a lifelong commitment to innovation, inclusion, and impact. Recognized across Canada for his work in HIV social sciences research, digital learning, and community-based knowledge mobilization. Through his teaching, writing, and advocacy, he inspired and connects.
Hani Sadati
LinkedInHani Sadati is a social science researcher, educator, and e-learning specialist with a PhD in Educational Studies from McGill University and a background in participatory, qualitative, and mixed-methods research across Canada, Ethiopia, and Iran. His work bridges research, education, and social justice, focusing on co-creating inclusive, community-driven solutions using digital tools, serious games, and knowledge mobilization strategies. Passionate about using research as a tool for social change, Hani is committed to creating environments that empower communities and advance equity. His doctoral project resulted in Mela, an award-winning serious game addressing gender-based violence in Ethiopian agricultural colleges. He has served as a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Community Based Research, E-learning Advisor at Open North, and E-learning Specialist at Equitas, International Centre for Human Rights Education—leading or collaborating with multi-stakeholder projects and developing accessible, engaging learning materials for diverse audiences. His interests include community- and arts-based research, game-based and experiential learning, e-learning, and innovation in research.
Jessica Bleuer
Bio Coming Soon
Leila Angod
@leilangodLeila Angod is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies at Carleton University where she teaches in the Childhood and Youth Studies program. Leila researches young people’s worldmaking processes and the un/making of race, gender, and class hierarchies. Her work explores the ethics, politics, arts-based methods, and facilitation practices of youth participatory action research. Leila’s first novel-in-progress explores themes from her research through YA speculative fiction.
Molly Bannerman
Bio Coming Soon
Muna Mohamed
Bio Coming Soon
Rose Gutierrez
Rose is Pinay lesbian, mother, community connector, creative strategist and community artivist. Her work is grounded and guided by her lived experience and for over 30 years (un)learning, navigating, and advocating for social equity and justice in partnership with diverse communities.
Rose graduated in Film Studies at the University of Toronto and worked as an independent producer/director with Isis Productions, with work screened at TIFF and Hot Docs. Alongside her creative practice she worked as an anti-racist educator with the Toronto District School Board, an anti-violence advocate in Women Shelters and later as the Director of Community Programming at Planned Parenthood Toronto promoting health equity. From 2010-2021, her work came full circle integrating art and equity as the Program Director for SKETCH Working Arts/Flip Foundation.
She has over 20 years of senior management experience, responsible for overall Organizational Strategic Direction including the development of the Programmatic Frameworks, Community Engagement Strategies, Equity Strategies and Research and Evaluation Frameworks.
Curating and co-creating with diverse artists and communities, giving voice to issues that are important to shaping a more equitable world has been a privilege.
Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández
Rubén A. Gaztambide-Fernández is Professor of Social Justice Education and Curriculum & Pedagogy at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. His research and scholarship examine symbolic boundaries and the dynamics of cultural production and processes of identification in educational contexts, with a particular focus on schools and community settings. He has conducted ethnographic and participatory research in a wide range of settings across the Abya-Yala (a.k.a. “the Americas”). His theoretical work focuses on the relationship between cultural production, pedagogy, and solidarity with a focus on decolonial and anti-racist practices.
Sarah Switzer
Sarah Switzer is an adult educator, interdisciplinary scholar, and Senior Researcher at the Centre for Community Based Researcher. She believes in working collaboratively, imaginatively and equitably for social justice and is committed to research done in partnership with communities and community-based organizations – often on topics related to health equity. She works collaboratively with communities and multi-stakeholder teams to co-create podcasts, photography exhibits, installations or graphics, video screenings, articles, curriculum, and more. Her lived experiences as a white, cis, queer settler, with an invisible disability has motivated her desire to co-design and co-imagine participatory spaces with accessibility, anti-racism and social justice at the centre. She was a lead researcher on beyondthetoolkit, which collaboratively explored how community-engaged practitioners adapted their facilitation practice to online settings, as a result of COVID-19. Her research interests include: participation, facilitation and community engagement; participatory visual methodologies; community-based participatory research; harm reduction and HIV/AIDS; and creative knowledge translation and co-design.
Sherry Ostapovitch
WebsiteSherry Ostapovitch is a PhD candidate in Social Justice Education at the University of Toronto whose research lies at the nexus of: social movements, sound and listening, sonic pedagogy, popular education, and practices of anti-/de-colonization. Sherry has been a part of community organizing and sound and music based-community education for adults and youth for 20 years. They currently teach “Auditory Cultures” as part of the graduate Sound Design Program at George Brown College in Toronto. Additionally, Sherry is also a sound artist whose work incorporates field recordings and multi-channel sound installations. Her previous work includes the multi-channel sound installation, In a Queer Time and Space and the collaboration, Decriminalised Futures, which was exhibited in 2022 at the ICA in London, UK.
Stuart Poyntz
X, @sfuceri, LinkedIn, BlueskyStuart is Professor in the School of Communication and Scientific Director of the Community Engaged Research Initiative (CERi) at Simon Fraser University. His work in participatory, community research has largely involved teenagers in informal learning spaces and art institutes.
Susanne Nyaga
Website, LinkedInSusanne Nyaga is a dedicated community organizer, activist, educator and Community-Based Consultant with over 10 years of experience working with systematically marginalized communities to elevate diverse narratives, mobilize around community priorities, and shape solutions for systemic change. Her work is grounded in an interlocking approach that allows her to see the nuance communities carry. She draws from many frameworks, including but not limited to; anti-oppressive practice, anti-racism, critical race theory, intersectionality, queer theory, feminist theory, and many more.
Vanessa Anakwudwabisayquay Cook
Vanessa Anakwudwabisayquay Cook is from Peguis First Nation and Winnipeg and from the Mikinaak (Turtle) and Doud Clans. Vanessa has aligned her heart and mind to work for The People. Vanessa is a Sh’kaabe (Helper) in all circles of her life including as an Indigenous Sexual Health Facilitator, an Adult Educator for social change with Righting Relations and as a director of Red Tent which provides anti-oppression education. For over two decades she has delivered thousands of workshops on decolonizing mental health, substance use and relationships. Vanessa is employed by Manitoba Justice as a Spiritual Care Provider. She prides herself on Indigenous education, graduating from Children of the Earth High School and obtaining a First Nation Counselling Degree (Brandon University.) Her highest education comes from Sundance/Fasting ceremonies, time spent in nature and with the very best teachers, the Elders, Medicine People and Family who grace her life. She is a Mother of two and an Aunty to many.
Wendy Ng
Wendy Ng, Research Coordinator, is a PhD candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto and the principal owner of Twin Muses Consulting Services. Her current research focuses on decolonial and anti-colonial pedagogies and solidarities between educators of the global majority in service of collective liberation from settler colonial narratives in cultural institutions. Wendy has over twenty years of experience working to change cultural institutions through anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and community-engaged praxis. She has implemented strategic plans, change management, and culture transformation initiatives throughout her career coordinating and managing educational programming in large public institutions including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Royal Ontario Museum, and Ontario Science Centre.
Organizational Partners
SFU’s Community Engaged Research Initiative (CERi)
Designed around a collaborative research infrastructure, CERi promotes principles of participation, cooperation, social transformation and knowledge translation to lift up and strengthen the capacity of SFU’s researchers and students to engage respectfully and ethically with community members.
CERi focuses on a reciprocal relationship between universities and communities. This allows our researchers and students to develop meaningful and productive research partnerships that are capable of making a positive difference in communities throughout British Columbia — and beyond.
Toronto Arts Foundation
Toronto Arts Foundation and our supporters share a clear vision for Toronto – a vibrant and creative city where every neighbourhood is enriched by the transformative benefits of the arts.
Through our programming and initiatives, we’re focused on bringing the arts to communities throughout the city. We do this, not only because every individual deserves to enjoy the many benefits of the arts, but because engaged and inclusive communities build strong cities.
Centre for Community Based Research
The Centre for Community Based Research (CCBR) is a non-profit organization located at the University of Waterloo (Ontario) campus, on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples. Established in 1982, CCBR’s mission is to build more responsive and supportive communities, especially for those with limited power and opportunity. CCBR conducts and promotes research and evaluation that is community-driven, participatory, and action-oriented. CCBR’s work builds on community strengths to create awareness, policies, and practices that advance equitable participation and inclusion of all community members with the goal of contributing to systemic change.
Women and HIV/AIDS Initiative
WHAI is a community-based response to HIV and AIDS among cis and Trans women, Two-Spirit and Non-Binary people in Ontario. WHAI’s work across Ontario is rooted in the principles of community development and collective impact.
Righting Relations Canada
Righting Relations is a national network of adult educators and community organizers working for radical social change. Rooted in popular education, matriarchal and anti-colonial values, and the building of right relations with each other, ourselves, and the land, Righting Relations seeks to build the capacity of its members, organizations, and community leaders in their work cultivating equity and social justice across Turtle Island.
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education is Canada's only all-graduate faculty of education.
As one of the world's most research-intensive faculties of education in the world, OISE is made up of a diverse community of innovators, collaborators and leaders that have been advancing education, human development and professional practice globally for over 100 years.
We are deeply committed to enhancing the social, economic, political and cultural wellbeing of individuals and communities locally, nationally and globally through leadership in teaching, research and advocacy.
A unique place to work, learn and grow, OISE addresses current and emerging challenges with the scale, academic excellence and collaborative energy that few institutions in the world can claim.
Website URL: https://www.oise.utoronto.ca/home
Social media handles: @oiseuoft