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Professional and Corporate, Social change Stuart McNish Professional and Corporate, Social change Stuart McNish

Producing works of value and building relationships

For Christy Smith’s role in indigenous engagement in environmental consulting, fieldwork is what makes her thrive. She loves going out into the community to build relationships and understanding the nuances of each community. This is a far cry from her dreams of being an artist, which were put on hold after she became a mother; she realized that she wanted to produce a work of value for her child’s future. This led her down a path of self-discovery, both personally and professionally.

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Health and Athletics, Social change Stuart McNish Health and Athletics, Social change Stuart McNish

Keeping dangerous drugs away from youth

The margin of error of drug abuse is narrowing, according to Chantal Vallerand. And that is how she remains passionate about her role as leader of Drug Free Kids Canada. It drives her forward every day, allowing her to seek out potential funders and supporters, explaining to them the importance of the mission to keep dangerous drugs away from youth.

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Social change, Education and Academia Stuart McNish Social change, Education and Academia Stuart McNish

Cultivating a career in prevention education

Cathy Peters is an advocate for those who cannot advocate for themselves. But she would describe her role as being in prevention education, cultivating her passion for the vulnerable. Her work in preventing child trafficking taps into that passion. This is a path that is almost custom-made for her, as an avid storyteller and absorbing others’ stories by learning and listening. “If I sound a little bit passionate,” she says, “I am.”

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Social change Stuart McNish Social change Stuart McNish

Researching how Canada can learn to live with China

Being an expert on China is a difficult job in today’s political climate – Paul Evans has to constantly explain that he is “not defending China, [but rather] how to live with China.” As a primary expert on Canada-China relations at the University of British Columbia, there is a demand for his insights nowadays, from the media and beyond. This is a career that he has aimed for right from the start. What makes his journey unique from other professors is that his entire education was in Canada, during a time when this was a difficult path to an academic career.

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Professional and Corporate, Social change Stuart McNish Professional and Corporate, Social change Stuart McNish

A career of knowing what makes people tick

No matter how much Mike Rowlands checks off his to-do list, the list keeps growing. That’s just the nature of being the founder and CEO of Junxion Strategy, an international social impact consultancy. This is a long way from his younger days, when he didn’t know what he wanted to do. He studied business in university and surprisingly didn’t like it. Over time, he experimented in various other businesses, including a bike shop, which gave him a first career where he learned about customer service, business, logistics, and everything in between – a valuable insight on what makes people tick

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Social change, Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish Social change, Professional and Corporate Stuart McNish

Enabling the funding the make communities better

As far as Dara Parker is concerned, she has her dream job. As the vice-president of grants and community initiatives at the Vancouver Foundation, her mission is to distribute the funding to make communities better. Throughout her career, she has worked with people and found that understanding people is fundamental to growing as a person and her current role.

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Social change Stuart McNish Social change Stuart McNish

Giving yourself to others and learning from each other

What is an international humanitarian? To Paul Sitnam, it is the idea of giving yourself to others and learning from the people that you are giving to. And because his work takes him all over the world, there is much to learn – how to work with people, respect their cultures, understand their procedures, and understand each other.

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Guiding organizations and companies towards young populations

Robert Barnard is the co-founder of Youthful Cities, which seeks to make our cities more youthful and dynamic. His path started as a human geography student, which fascinated him. As a self-described “serial entrepreneur,” his studies kept combining with his passion. Every step of the way, people kept asking, “What’s with all these young people?” Seeing a demand for governments and companies to market to young people led him to pivot his focus towards creating communities focused around youth and young adults.

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Examining feminist geography and energizing future geographers

Leslie is an author who, in her book Feminist City: A Field Guid, provides a detailed guide to feminist city-building. She points out that cities were designed with men in mind; women were an afterthought. As such, urban environments frequently put women’s well-being and safety at risk.

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Social change Stuart McNish Social change Stuart McNish

Trauma-informed leadership for a modern police force

Bob Rich knows all too well the challenges police officers face. One of them is the exceptional volume of PTSD inducing events police officers face during their careers. Trauma as an occupational stress injury became a focus for him when, as police chief in Abbotsford, two of his officers took their lives.

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