The 2026 LSJC cohort includes leaders from across sectors in the GTA who are working on social justice issues including including youth engagement, access to healthcare, racial discrimination, and more.
Learn more about each project and meet the teams below.
Beyond care’s work is meant to uplift, connect and encourage youth from care to have the opportunity to increase collaboration with them and the community to foster healthy connections
Team members:
Keziah Oduro
Regene Mallare
Sadeqah Tahir
This project looks at how limited access to youth recreation and extracurricular activities affect long-term education, employment, and opportunity. It highlights different community programs that may help connect youth to future career pathways.
Team Members
Hana Rafael
Nathaniel Berekete
Yonatan Kesete
This project aims to examine how spiritually integrative Afrocentric therapeutic models grounded in NTU principles and aligned with trauma and violence informed care can improve cultural safety, emotional healing, de‑escalation outcomes, and housing stability for racialized women within emergency shelter and supportive housing settings.
Team Members
Audrey Nkrumah
Grace Kolawole
Lilly Bourani
Cyber Canada is an initiative focused on giving people the foundations they need to learn about AI and cybersecurity.
Team Members
Hussein Jadavji
Junior Taylor
Zak Chowdhury
The C.A.R.E Project centres on working with the Moss Park Safety Network under the Downtown East Action Plan for research into and integration of innovative and health-conscious solutions to community safety issues in Moss Park. The main focus is to advance investment into emotional architecture; that is, urban spaces that are designed with health, equity and safety as core components.
Team Members
Ahsen Bhatti
Katherine Valenzuela
Winston Lee
Grassroots arts and cultural organizations often struggle to navigate the necessary development, finance, and operational processes to secure and maintain cultural spaces. Using primary and secondary research, this project aims to create a concise and practical Development Approvals and Economic Strategy Handbook that explains planning processes, financial pathways, and property readiness for studios and multi-use cultural spaces in Ontario.
Team Members
Lakshmi Soundarapandian
Maharshee Kaira
Sushmitha Thirumalaivasan
The project creates a Youth Forum led by the Youth Tenant Advisory Committee to give young TCHC residents structured, meaningful opportunities to influence decisions affecting their communities. It builds youth leadership, embeds their voices into organizational processes, and strengthens equitable, youth-centered engagement across TCHC sites.
Team Members
Fozia Ahmed
Libin Ali Mohamed
Umu Barrie
Essential Beginnings: Reimagining Settlement Supports strengthens the foundation of newcomer integration by addressing a critical but overlooked gap in the settlement system: the need for essential household items when families move from shelters into permanent housing. This project develops a sustainable, community-informed model that ensures every newcomer can begin their life in Canada with dignity, stability, and a functional home. Through systems-level collaboration and innovation, we aim to redefine household essentials support as a core component of equitable settlement services.
Team Members
Amina Khote
Basmah Ahmed
Zainab Chauhdary
Our project focuses on reducing systemic barriers that limit marginalized communities’ access to essential services in the GTA by identifying service gaps and designing more equitable, coordinated solutions.
Team Members
Jenni Macko
Jon Nhan
Preeti Ramakumaraswamy
This project studies long hospital admission delays in Toronto emergency departments. Through interviews and workflow mapping, the team will identify practical ways to improve patient flow and reduce decision-to-admit wait times.
Team Members
Ali Joya
Asma Sharifi
Homa Wahaj
Creating culturally grounded spaces where Black community members gather for healing while documenting lived experiences through storytelling and participatory surveys. These stories become collective evidence used to strengthen community power, inform public education, and advocate for more equitable health and social systems.
Team Members
Chevy Smith
Helen Ford Gordon
Marlon McPherson
The project develops an equitable and repeatable land governance and stewardship framework that enables time-bound, grassroots-led activation of underused non-permitted public and private lands during extended development pauses and land withholding.
Team Members
Annabelle Bernard
Joanna Delos Reyes
Marveh Farhoodi
Bridge Health Collaborative is an NPO that works directly with food security organizations to improve health outcomes for clients with, or at high risk for, Type 2 diabetes. We aim to facilitate co-design sessions with community members and stakeholders to create a diabetes prevention program, then apply principles of implementation and organizational science to ensure effective uptake and integration at three partner food bank sites.
Team Members
Dalia Hassan
Deena Hassan
Sarra Shaker
Mississauga is Canada’s eighth largest city with a problematic voting rate. In collaboration with the Democratic Engagement Exchange at the Toronto Metropolitan University, this project will build out the grassroots ground game to drive a non-partisan voter campaign in Mississauga for the October 2026 municipal election.
Team Members
Daisy Yiu
Nicole Danesi
Marium Vahed
This project explores the overlooked mental health impacts of AI-driven solo-preneurship among newcomer jobseekers, who are increasingly pushed toward entrepreneurship without adequate support. It develops a practical toolkit, including a structured prompt library or custom GPT, to help newcomers use AI in ways that support reflection, resilience, and wellbeing and prevent them from isolation and burnout.
Team Members
Faneesh Kholi
Fei Tang
Victor Huynh
Our project addresses the barriers Black youth in the GTA face in accessing and utilizing mental health resources, including stigma, affordability, and lack of culturally relevant services. We aim to create inclusive, accessible, and culturally responsive mental wellness supports tailored to the diverse needs of Black youth.
Team Members
Nicole Walters
Dana Williams
Keowa Walters