Community Partner | The Harriet Tubman Institute

Ayomide Yemi

rebsl — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 20:07:38 +0000

Ayomide Yemi is a researcher and development practitioner working at the intersection of women’s economic empowerment, financial inclusion, and behavioral finance in low-income contexts. She is the Founder of Renbi Women Empowerment Initiative, a Nigeria-based organization focused on strengthening the sustainability of economic empowerment outcomes for last-mile women through community-based financial literacy and behavior change models.

Her work is grounded in extensive field experience with women in informal economies, where she has designed and implemented financial literacy and savings-focused interventions tailored to low-literacy and underserved communities. Through this work, she has developed the HER-Inclusion Model, a behavioral readiness framework that examines the gap between access to financial services and sustained financial participation among low-income women.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law and a Master’s degree in Management with a specialization in Finance and Investment from IE Business School.

Keywords: Women’s Economic Empowerment, Financial Inclusion, Behavioral Finance, Financial Literacy, Informal Economies, Social Impact, Community-Based Finance

Jude Idada

rebsl — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 19:52:46 +0000

Jude Idada is a winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literature, an AMAA best screenplay award, an AMAA for Best Film by An African in the Diaspora, an AFRIFF Globe best screenplay award, and an ANA prize for Drama alongside several other awards.

Amongst others, Jude was selected as one of the writers for the University of Iowa International Writers Program, the TIFF ‘Adapt This” project, Afrinolly/Ford Foundation ‘Cinema4Change’ project, New Directions Filmmakers of the future project by MNET and the Relativity Media/AFRIFF Filmmaking project.

His films, The Tenant, Queen of the Night and Kofa have won various awards around the world. In addition to this, he has written feature films and television series for various multinational entertainment organizations, like StudioCanal, Netflix, and Amazon Prime.

He has written and published a collection of short stories “A Box of Chocolates”, an anthology of poetry “Exotica Celestica”, three stage plays “Oduduwa – King of the Edos,” “Sankara” and “L’Otor – The Devils Pilgrimage, the first book in a trilogy of novels “By My Own Hands”, a memoiresque novel “The Debate” and two children’s books “Didi Kanu and the Singing Dwarfs of the North” and “Boom Boom” along with ghostwriting several biographies.

He is a member of the Nigeria Oscar Selection Committee, and was the Chair of the Jury of the Coal City Film Festival, the Witsprouts Storytelling Prize and the head judge of the Quramo Writers Prize. In addition to this, he was also the Creative Director of the AfriCan Theatre Ensemble in Toronto Canada
His plays have been staged at British Council’s Lagos Theatre Festival, the Lagos Fringe Festival and other cities in Africa, North America, South America, and Europe.

He has written and directed for stage in Canada, US, Nigeria, Ghana, and Guyana.
He has lectured on several topics in higher institutions in North America, South America and Africa.
Jude has been inducted into the National Wall of Role Models at the Black Canadian Awards and founded the Sandra Whiteley Prize for Children’s Literature.

He actively writes observational, and analytical non-fiction and fictional stories across social media, which are aimed at enlightening, entertaining, educating and molding the general public.

He divides his time between Toronto, Canada and Lagos, Nigeria.

Mohamed Ahmed

rebsl — Fri, 05 Dec 2025 17:14:46 +0000

Mohamed Ahmed Research Assistant for the Islamophobia Research Hub. He has over 10 years of hands-on experience in supporting refugee survivors of torture and gender-based violence His work emphasizes community mobilization against gender-based violence and economic empowerment, while critically engaging with issues of race, masculinity, and social justice to challenge oppressive norms and promote gender equality. He has conducted in-depth research on the impacts of forced relocation on urban refugee women and girls as well as unaccompanied minors facing violence. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Gender and Women’s Studies from 91��ɫ, further solidifying his commitment to fostering gender equality and addressing the complexities of gender-based violence in refugee contexts.

Keywords: Islamophobia, masculinities, violence against women, anti-racist feminisms, anti-colonial feminisms

Omolola Afolabi

rebsl — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 15:17:50 +0000

Omolola Afolabi is a Nigerian investigative journalist, researcher and research communicator whose work sits at the intersection of public-interest journalism, social justice and development. She reports on issues including gender, health, children’s rights, climate and environmental justice, technology and governance, with a focus on amplifying underreported experiences and holding institutions accountable.

She is a Pulitzer Center grantee and Community Partner of the Harriet Tubman Institute at 91��ɫ, and has worked with and contributed to platforms and organisations advancing investigative journalism, development communication and social impact. Her reporting has examined issues including environmental injustice, access to healthcare, misinformation and the rights and wellbeing of marginalised communities.

Beyond journalism, Omolola is developing Comms for Dev Africa, an initiative that helps African researchers, academics, and development practitioners communicate their research beyond academic audiences through accessible storytelling, journalism, and strategic research communication. Through this work, she is interested in strengthening connections between research, media, policy and communities.

Her broader interests include African and diasporic experiences, gender justice, mental health, disability and inclusion, migration, environmental justice, children's rights, and the communication of research for social change. She is particularly interested in collaborations that bridge academic knowledge and lived experience with public discourse and policy.

She holds a degree in English Education and a professional journalism qualification from Nigeria's National Broadcast Academy.

Keywords: Slavery, Heritage Sites, Preservation, Climate Change, Sand Mining, Collectuve Healing, Historical Site, Coastal Communities

Ify Okadigbo

rebsl — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 18:07:53 +0000

Ifeyinwa (Ify) Okadigbo, PhD. is a Black African Canadian scholar-activist with a strong record of developing theoretical and methodological frameworks for understanding the nuanced and complex experiences of Black African women across diverse physical and ideological contexts. She earned her PhD from 91��ɫ in Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies, completing it in four years, passing without revisions, and receiving a nomination for dissertation prize by the faculty of Graduate Studies. In addition, she holds dual master’s degrees from 91��ɫ where she earned a distinction, and the University of East Anglia, UK, in Gender and International Development.

With over a decade of research, teaching, and community engaged experience, her work explores gender, spirituality, governance, and institutional power in African and Black contexts. Her pedagogical practice is informed by critical, inclusive, and decolonial approaches that empower students to interrogate power, resistance, and social transformation. Beyond the academy, she collaborates with policymakers and community organizations to produce engaged, policy relevant research that advances gender justice, challenges racism, patriarchy and sexism across public and private spheres.

Keywords: Decolonization, Spirituality, African Feminism, Gender, Coloniality, Power

Gabriela A.K.I. Sealy

rebsl — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 20:14:23 +0000

Gabriela Sealy is a researcher, curator, and maker who works at the seams of memory, material, and care. Rooted in the textile traditions of the African diaspora, her work stitches together oral history, archival fragments, and creative practice to trace what survives and who carries it. She recently completed her MA in Art History and Visual Culture at 91��ɫ, where her Major Research Project, The Black Pollera: Stitches of Survival, Threads of Legacy, explored the pollera de Congo as both a garment and a living archive of Afro-Panamanian matriarchal knowledge.

Gabriela’s practice moves between storytelling and scholarship, threading the personal with the political. Guided by the hands of those who came before, she uses cloth not just as a medium, but as a method—to touch the past, to imagine otherwise, and to hold space for what has been passed down. A SSHRC-funded scholar, she brings her training in curatorial work, conservation, and cultural heritage to projects that honour community, creativity, and intergenerational legacy.

Keywords: Black feminist material culture, Afro-Caribbean textile traditions, Research-creation, Decolonial methodologies, Cultural memory, Embodied knowledge, Oral history, Diasporic storytelling, Textile as archive, Intergenerational care, Visual culture, Ancestral knowledge, Craft-based resistance, Community-engaged art, Afro-Panamanian identity

Rachel Aarons

rebsl — Tue, 21 Feb 2023 18:05:59 +0000

Rachel (she/her/hers) is a writer, educator and DEI enthusiast who majored in marketing and finance at 91��ɫ’s Schulich School of Business. Her experiences at business school, working as a marketing and finance research assistant, and while competing internationally on Schulich’s Case Competition Team have inspired her to adopt a practical, business- and solution-oriented approach when using African research to address modern social and political issues. As a former member of the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) DEI team, she has published the “How to Support Racialized Employees in Times of Tragedy” toolkit and has drafted the “How to Be a More Inclusive Leader” toolkit to instil a culture of diversity and equity companywide. Her personal and secondary experiences with inequity through teaching students of African descent Black history at the Markham African Caribbean Canadian Association (MACCA) and defending low-income youth via legal aid at a Toronto criminal law firm, have fuelled her passion to empower Black youth with knowledge of prosperous pre-contact African civilizations. While pursuing her undergraduate studies, she focused on researching diverse topics including the role of Women in Ancient Africa, religion in East Africa, politics in the Aksumite Empire, and Ethiopia & Liberia as uncolonized nations. In her postgraduate research, she would like to explore the history of African politics, economics and mobility in the colonial age, and expressive culture and belief systems during the pre-colonial age.

Renee Lefebvre

rebsl — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 01:31:39 +0000

I am a fourth-year student in the Human Rights and Equity Studies program at 91��ɫ minoring in History. After working as a research assistant and content coordinator for the Equiano's World website from May 2020 to December 2021, I have been accepted into placement as a research assistant with the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean. I plan on pursuing a career in the field of history after graduating.

Joe Konieczny

rebsl — Sun, 06 Mar 2022 01:29:26 +0000

Joe Konieczny is a writer, educator, and master’s student in the Art History and Visual Culture program at 91��ɫ. His research focuses primarily on the cultural history of the Swahili Coast, with a particular emphasis on postcolonial theory and archival epistemology. Joe’s thesis work focuses on emerging philosophies of representation in artist’s run centres on the continent, and the ways in which their affiliate staff and artists engage with a western academy and public that have resisted decolonization. Joe’s other writing has covered diverse topics, reflecting his numerous research interests. His peer-reviewed work includes analysis of the Kenyan-German performance artist Myriam Syowia Kyambi, a series of diatribes against apoliticism in academia, and a look at the curatorial legacy of Okwui Enwezor. Outside of the classroom, Joe works on curriculum at the Korean edu-tech company Ringle, where he is developing a series of advanced English language trainings for use by artistic professionals. He is the president of the Art History Graduate Students Association and the facilitator of a professional art writing group in the Toronto area.

Keywords: Visual culture; Swahili history; artist-run centres

Henry Gomez

rebsl — Fri, 17 Dec 2021 05:29:45 +0000

Henry Gomez is an educator, who was formerly employed by the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) as a high school teacher; and was nominated for a Teacher- of-The-Year award. He specialized in English Literature, Media Studies and Drama. He holds an MFA in Theatre and a BA in English from 91��ɫ and obtained his B. Ed from the University of Toronto. He believes in lifelong learning. After retirement from active teaching, he returned to 91��ɫ, where he recently defended his master’s thesis in Interdisciplinary Studies.

He was born and grew up in Princes Town, Trinidad and Tobago, where he began his career in education. As an actor, composer, recording artiste and radio host, he has an extensive background in various aspects of the performing arts in Canada and internationally.

He has worked in radio, television, film and theatre; and has hosted shows on CFRB 1010 and CIUT 89.5 FM. He has also worked as a theatre director and Master of Ceremonies. Under his sobriquet, King Cosmos, he became a Canadian Calypso Monarch, the winner of a Canadian Urban Music Award and a Canadian Reggae Music Award. He is also a Sunshine Award nominee. His community service includes helping to develop the Caribbean cultural arts in Toronto. He is a founding member and first Chair/Secretary of the Organization of Calypso Performing Artistes (OCPA) and a past Chair of the Caribana Arts Group. For the period 2012 to 2014, he led the team that produced the Flags and Colours children’s carnival for residents of the Jane and Finch community in Toronto. Henry looks forward to working for the betterment of the Harriet Tubman Institute.

Keywords: carnival, calypso, music, culture, Caribbean, Toronto, Africa, Canada, Trinidad, Tobago, Trinbago