Provincial Advisory Group

Amy S. FitzGerald is the Executive Director and formerly the Director of Training & Programs at the BC Society of Transition Houses (BCSTH).

Previously in BC, Amy was a policy analyst working on gender based violence issues as they relate to coordinated community responses, the workplace and transportation in rural and remote BC. She has been a public interest lawyer for over 20 years and served as the domestic violence Assistant Attorney General at the Vermont Attorney General’s Office working on unsolved homicides and domestic violence litigation, policy, training and legislation, as well as a Legal Services lawyer and Public Defender in Vermont and NYC. Amy was the founding chair of Vermont’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission, served on Vermont’s Child Fatality Review Team and the BC Coroner’s Service Death Review Panel reviewing Intimate Partner Violence Deaths from 2010 – 2015.

Dr. Angela Kaida is an Associate Professor and epidemiologist in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. 

She holds a Canada Research Chair in Global Perspectives on HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health. Dr. Kaida has been awarded funding from CIHR, SSHRC, Grand Challenges Canada, and the National Institutes of Health to lead a global research program focused on factors and environments that increase vulnerability or protect sexual and reproductive health, in the context of HIV. Dr. Kaida works closely with community leaders and decision-makers to integrate research evidence into health policy and programming, attending to social and gender equity. She has served in numerous institutional, national, and global leadership roles including with the WHO Department of Reproductive Health and Research, sub-Saharan African Network of TB and HIV research Excellence (SANTHE), the Canadian Association for HIV Research (CAHR), and the BC Women’s Health Research Institute (WHRI).  To read more about Dr. Kaida’s research contributions, please click here.

Bahar Taheri Bahar Taheri has been working in the Settlement and Integration sector for over 10 years in a variety of roles.

Currently Bahar is the lead project consultant managing the BC Refugee Hub and Newcomer.info. In February of 2021 she joined the BC Newcomer Camp in the role of Executive Director.

In the past Bahar has worked as a National Immigrant Youth Program Supervisor, Canada Focal Point Assistant for the ATCR, an annual UNHCR resettlement conference held in Geneva and positions with AMSSA and ISSofBC.

Dr. June Francis is from Institute for Diaspora Research and Engagement at SFU

Junie Désil is a poet. Born of immigrant (Haitian) parents on the Traditional Territories of the Kanien’kehá:ka in the island known as Tiohtià:ke (Montréal), raised in Treaty 1 Territory (Winnipeg).

Junie currently works in the DTES as the Director of Operations at the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre (DEWC).

Kim Hawkins is the founding Executive Director at Rise Women’s Legal Centre which opened its doors in 2016.

She came to Vancouver via Whitehorse, Yukon Territory where she worked for many years as a staff lawyer at a busy legal aid clinic, practising mainly in the areas of family, criminal and child protection law. While in Whitehorse she also spent two years as a judicial clerk, worked as an investigator at the Yukon Human Rights Commission, and served as President of the Board of Yukon Women’s Transition Home Society. From 2007 to 2008, Kim worked on strategic constitutional and human rights litigation at the Legal Resources Centre in Grahamstown, South Africa. She holds a J.D. in Law from the University of Victoria, and a Masters in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford. When she isn’t in the office, Kim enjoys baking bread, yoga, and puttering around her community garden plot. Kim was born and raised in Victoria BC, in the unceded territory of the WSÁNEĆ (Saanich) Nation and is grateful to now live, learn, work and play on the unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Tsleil-Waututh (Burrard) and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) Nations. She is also deeply thankful to her many teachers from Yukon’s First Nations.

Leslie Varley is the Executive Director of BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres, where she and her team focus on supporting the 25 member centers providing front line services to Indigenous people.

Previously Leslie held the Indigenous health portfolio at Provincial Health Services Authority where she led the San’yas Indigenous Cultural Safety Training, a facilitated, online decolonizing anti-racism training program offered to the health, social and justice sectors in three Canadian provinces. Leslie’s community work has focused on ending violence against women and girls. As an Indigenous advocate she has had roles in both provincial and federal governments, and within and for Indigenous community. A member of the Killer Whale house of the Nisga’a Nation, Leslie resides as a guest at beautiful Musqueam Nation in Vancouver. She has a Master’s in Business Administration from Simon Fraser University

Tansi, I am Nancy Laliberte, I am Nêhiyaw/Métis from the Beaver River area of what is now known as Saskatchewan.

I currently live on the traditional, ancestral territory of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation and work within the unceded land of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. I am a daughter, sister, auntie and friend. I have a 20+ year history in research in the downtown eastside (DTES) of Vancouver in HIV and Hepatitis C surveillance, homelessness, mental health, Indigenous youth health, problematic substance use and opioid replacement. It was in the DTES that I was mentored in harm reduction, Indigenous rights and social justice. The remarkable people of the DTES were a fundamental part of my education as they generously shared teachings with me. I completed a Master of Public Health in 2012 from SPPH at UBC. I am currently working toward a PhD in Population & Public Health at UBC with the The’ye’lh Smun’eem Indigenous Youth Wellness project.

Raji Mangat is the executive director of West Coast LEAF, a BC-based non-profit organization using legal strategies to advance gender-based equality.

Raji’s recent work has been focused on access to justice, the gendered impacts of detention, and non-criminal law approaches to addressing technology-facilitated gender-based violence.

Ojistoh works with Support Network for Indigenous Women and Women Of Color (SNIWWOC) as Project Assistant.

She is a Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) youth activist from the Turtle Clan, passionate about working towards a better future; with experience in community organization and mobilization, performance and fine arts. Ojistoh brings her experience performing in Social Worker training simulations to workshops with environmental organizations, Ojistoh is excited to create positive change alongside SNIWWOC’s incredible team.

Tim Agg is from Qmunity