Born in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1996, Hannah is by all accounts a regular young teen. Her zest for life extends to her love of people, nature, writing and drawing. She is the published author of Ruby’s Hope, a beautifully written and illustrated children’s story that inspires hope and caring, and empowers its readers to get involved and “makeChange” at any age.
When Hannah was 5, she saw a man eating out of a garbage can on a frozen winter day. Hannah was immediately filled with sadness and questions. “Why, why, why?” she asked. “If everyone shared what they had, could that cure homelessness?” Since that defining moment, Hannah has learned about hunger and homelessness. Where society sees a problem, Hannah sees a person. By 8, Hannah had founded The Ladybug Foundation Inc., a registered charity, and had become the innocent face of the homeless, seeing their plight with the clarity of a child and speaking out for them across Canada, and elsewhere in the world, to one person at a time and to groups as large as 16,000. Hannah has spoken to more than 175 schools, organizations and events. Hannah believes that everyone deserves a roof over their head and enough food to eat, as basic human rights. Through Hannah’s efforts, well over 3 million dollars has been raised directly and indirectly to assist projects across Canada providing shelter, food and safety for homeless people. Hannah has visited many of the shelters she supports. At a teenage shelter in Toronto, Hannah experienced a moment that she will never forget. As she was leaving the shelter, hugging each child, one of the quietest children stepped from the back and said, “Until today I thought no one loved me. Now I know you love me.” Hannah is also the founder of a second, separate charity, The Ladybug Foundation Education Program Inc., through which she has inspired the development of “makeChange: The Ladybug Foundation Education Program”, a K-12 resource for use in schools across Canada to empower young people to get involved and “makeChange” in their world. |
Rebecca Powell BPE, B.Ed. MA in Leadership
Rebecca is a leadership consultant and educator. She has been working with youth for over 15 years. She is currently the Director of Leadership at St. John’s-Ravenscourt School and has a leadership consulting firm, Empowell. She completed her MA in leadership at Royal Roads University and is now dedicating her career to igniting the leadership potential within her students and clients. She believes that having a strong sense of self and developing a variety of leadership skills are important for academic and future professional success. The works of Leadership gurus, Kouzes and Posner, and Senge have inspired Rebecca to create an empowering leadership development experience. Many of Rebecca’s students and clients have reported that the work she does with them has changed their lives. |
Lindy Norris
Lindy Norris is Founder & President of Athena Leadership and Director of Business Development & Marketing at Pitblado Law. She was named to Marketing Magazine’s 30 Under 30 brightest young minds in Canada, was a Future Leaders of Manitoba Top 3 Finalist, received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medial for outstanding contribution to community, and received the Futurpreneur Chairman’s award for outstanding mentorship. In March 2016, Lindy delivered a TEDxUManitoba talk on how to “Fail Better” – developing resilience and finding your tribe. She has been published on Forbes.com, Yahoo Finance, and Golden Girl Finance, was invited to attend two Forbes Under 30 Summits in Philadelphia and Boston, and is attending her third in Israel this April. Through her work with Athena Leadership, Lindy has overseen operations that include establishment of the Leader of Tomorrow Scholarship Fund at The Winnipeg Foundation, as well as the creation of changeleaders – Manitoba’s first millennial leadership development conference that sold out in under one week and drew 500 of Manitoba’s brightest young leaders together in learning, connecting, and moving forward. She has been a speaker for YMCA's Power of Being a Girl Conference, Canadian Women in Communications and Technology, Morden & District and Portage la Prairie Chambers of Commerce, Asper Undergraduate and MBA programs, Red River College, the Canadian Conference on Student Leadership, and more. For over 15 years she has supported the community through organizations like United Way Winnipeg, Manitoba Horse Trials, St. Amant Foundation, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Futurpreneur, Canadian Marketing Association, Lean In, and more. She is a proud member of the United Way’s Resource Development Taskforce, is a current member of Athena Leadership and The Associates, holds a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degrees from the University of Manitoba, and has studied within the university's MBA program. |
Lola Ajao
In Lola’s community of Thompson, Manitoba, Lola began an initiative named The Profit of a Potty to help specifically homeless populations through the platform of hygiene and health. As Lola’s parents were employed health providers in her city of Thompson, she understood the benefits to the progression of health and hygiene in her community, and the need to do something about it. Enacting her non-profit organization The Profit of a Potty, she established a self-sustaining system that donates hygiene products to the homeless, promotes the necessity of health in the homeless community, and continues to work alongside her city to create Thompson’s first public city washroom. |