Born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) also known as “brittle bone disease,” is a rare genetic condition that makes my bones very fragile and prone to fractured easily in numerous times, from my bath until my age of 20th in rural Somalia, I have faced significant challenges, including systemic discrimination, insecurity, and physical barriers.

Despite these obstacles, my determination and resilience have enabled me to achieve numerous personal and professional milestones. Becoming a journalist in 2014 was a dream come true. It opened a new world where disability rights could be explored and championed.

This journey has allowed me to advocate not only for myself but also for my fellow disability community, including my youngest daughter, who shares the same condition as I do.

I recently immigrated to Canada from Somalia with my family after spending nearly seven years as a refugee in Uganda.

Payam Akhavan, LLB (Osgoode) LLM SJD (Harvard) OOnt FRSC, is the inaugural holder of the Massey Chair in Human Rights. Professor Akhavan is also Senior Fellow at Massey College, Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, Associate Member of the Institut de droit international, and Special Advisor on Genocide to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. He was previously Full Professor at McGill University Faculty of Law (2005-20), Distinguished Visitor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, with other appointments at Yale Law School, Leiden University, Oxford University, Université Paris Nanterre, and Sciences Po École de Droit.

He has published extensively on human rights and international criminal law in leading academic journals and is on the Editorial Review Board of Human Rights Quarterly. In 2017 he delivered the CBC Massey Lectures In Search of a Better World: A Human Rights Odyssey. The companion book became the top non-fiction bestseller in Canada and the subject of a CBC documentary film.

Professor Akhavan was the first Legal Advisor to the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (1994-2000) at The Hague. He has also served with the UN investigating atrocities in conflict zones – including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Cambodia, Guatemala, Rwanda, and Timor Leste – and defended genocide survivors throughout the world – including the Bahá’ís of Iran, the Yazidi of Iraq, and Myanmar’s Rohingya minority.

He has served as counsel and advocate in notable cases before the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Supreme Court of Canada, and the Supreme Court of the United States. He also serves as Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Global Affairs of Canada and member of the Advisory Panel on the Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 Tragedy, Counsel to the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law, Honourary Canadian Co-Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, and Co-Founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre. He is recipient of the 2021 Human Rights Award of the Law Society of Ontario and his human rights work has been featured in the New York Times, BBC HARDtalk, CBC Ideas, Maclean’s, TV Ontario, and other media.

From local initiatives to international endeavours, Fariborz dedicated his career to advancing immigration, refugee support, diversity, equal rights, and the cultural arts. A former refugee himself, Fariborz Birjandian fled his home country of Iran with his family, finding temporary refuge in Lahore, Pakistan. There, he began his impactful work with refugees under the auspices of the UNHCR. After settling in Canada, Fariborz volunteered with the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society and soon became a Settlement Counsellor. His dedication and leadership led to a remarkable 29-year tenure as CCIS’s Chief Executive Officer. Today, he continues to make a difference as the organization’s Strategic Advisor. Fariborz also serves as the Co-Chair for the National Afghan Resettlement Program, contributing his expertise to critical resettlement efforts. His outstanding contributions have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Government of Canada’s Citation for Citizenship, the Alberta Centennial Medal, and the Queen’s Gold, Diamond, and Platinum Jubilee Medals

Nhial Deng is an award-winning youth advocate, storyteller, and community activist with extensive professional experience in policy advocacy, communications, international development, external relations, youth leadership, and corporate social responsibility.

Growing up in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, Nhial became a youth leader and community activist at age 17, initiating impactful projects like the Refugee Youth Peace Ambassadors and SheLeads Kakuma. By the end of 2023, his community work in Kakuma had empowered over 20,000 young people through peacebuilding, education, sports, and entrepreneurship programs.

Now pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Global Studies and Communications at Huron University in Canada, Nhial leverages his powerful voice, personal story, and expertise to drive systemic change and inspire global action. His advocacy work focuses on refugee issues, education, aid localization, peace, gender equality, and climate justice.

In recognition of his community work and advocacy efforts, Nhial has received numerous accolades, including the World Vision Hero for Children: Courage Award 2023, Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee Award, and, most recently, the prestigious Global Student Prize 2023.

Currently, he is working on the Kakuma Leadership and Innovation Centre, a community hub in the Kakuma refugee camp designed to help young people heal, connect, learn, and innovate solutions for a brighter and more hopeful future.

Dr. Rageshri Dhairyawan is a doctor, researcher and writer. She qualified in 2004 and is a Consultant in Sexual Health and HIV Medicine at Barts Health NHS Trust in London, UK. She is Deputy Director of the SHARE Collaborative for Health Equity, Queen Mary University of London. Her clinical work, research and advocacy focus on improving health equity, particularly at the intersections of gender and ethnicity. She has held numerous national charity and policy positions and regularly works with patient organisations. Rageshri was named as a ‘Woman Changing the World’ on International Women’s Day in 2019 by iNews, for her work advocating for the needs of racially minoritised women in sexual health. Currently, she chairs the British HIV Association's Equity, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Action Group, the steering group of 4M mentor Mothers CIC and is a medical board member of NAZ. Rageshri’s own experiences of being unheard as a patient and her work with minoritised communities, have inspired her to speak up about injustice in healthcare. She is an inaugural Wellcome Collection x Spread the Word awardee 2022 where she was supported to write her debut non-fiction book Unheard: The Medical Practice of Silencing, published by Trapeze in 2024. She writes regularly for medical journals including The Lancet and British Medical Journal.

Dr. Shatha Elnakib, PhD, MPH has over a decade of experience working at the intersection of sexual and reproductive health and humanitarian assistance. As an Assistant Scientist in the International Health Department at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, she leads several mixed-methods research projects focused on generating evidence to improve the quality of sexual and reproductive health services and policies in humanitarian settings. Prior to starting her faculty appointment, Shatha worked for the Population Council, UNFPA, UNICEF and the World Health Organization. She holds an MPH in Epidemiology from Columbia University and a PhD in International Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Yipeng Ge is a primary care physician and public health practitioner based on the traditional, unceded, and unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg. In his clinical practice, he works in family medicine practice and refugee health at a community health centre. He has worked on and studied the structural and colonial determinants of health in both the settler colonial contexts of so-called Canada and occupied Palestine.

Rachel Kronick is a researcher and child psychiatrist. She is co-director of Outpatient Child Psychiatry Services at the Jewish General Hospital and child consultant with the Cultural Consultation Service. She completed her residency training and masters in Transcultural Psychiatry at McGill University. Her clinical and research Fellowship in child and youth psychiatry was based at the University of Toronto and focused on trauma, homelessness and refugeed families.

Her primary research is on the social determinants of mental health for refugee, asylum-seeking and precarious migrant children and families, with a specific focus on migration policies and practices in Canada. Since 2018, Dr Kronick has been awarded 19 grants as Principal Investigator, totalling more than 2.5 million dollars, including five Tri-Agency grants.

Her work has focused on the immigration detention of children and preventative community- and school-based ecosocial interventions for refugee claimant and newcomer families. Her current CIHR and SSHRC research-to-policy projects address the present public health crisis of mass arrivals of asylum seekers with the resultant need for temporary accommodation sites in Ontario and Québec and the stressful context this creates for children and families during the first months after arrival Canada. Her research uses qualitative and mixed-methods methodologies, including Critical Ethnography, Visual and Arts-Based Methodologies and Participatory Action Research.

Tara Lang has been the Director General of the Migration Health Branch at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) since October 2024. Previously, she held the role of Director General (DG) of the Centralized Network at IRCC for over three years, responsible for six offices across Canada and more than 3,000 employees.

Tara holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Criminology and Criminal Justice: Concentration in Sociology, and began her career with the Department in 2000 as a student. Tara has held a variety of increasingly challenging positions over her career with Immigration, including three years with the Enforcement and Intelligence branches of the Canada Border Services Agency, and five years as the Advisor to the Assistant Deputy Minister of Operations.

Tara is married and is a mother, stepmother, and grandmother. In her free time, she enjoys playing with her two young, active dogs, as well as attending live music events.

Michael Lynk taught at the Faculty of Law, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada from 1999 until his retirement in 2022. He taught courses in labour, human rights, disability, constitutional and administrative law. He served as Associate Dean of the Faculty between 2008-11. He became Professor Emeritus in 2023.

Professor Lynk serves as a labour arbitrator and mediator. He presently is an arbitrator with the Ontario Grievance Settlement Board. He has published widely on Canadian labour law and human rights law. He is the co-author of Trade Union Law in Canada (Carswell) and Employment Law in Canada (5th ed.) (Lexis Nexis).

In March 2016, the United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously selected Professor Lynk for a six-year term as the 7th Special Rapporteur for the human rights situation in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967. In his capacity, he delivered regular reports to the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council on human rights trends in the OPT. He completed his term in April 2022.

He has written about his UN experiences in a 2022 book co-authored with Richard Falk and John Dugard, two of his predecessors as UN special rapporteurs: Protecting Human Rights in Occupied Palestine: Working Through the United Nations (Clarity Press).

Professor Lynk’s scholarship and UN reports have been widely cited by courts, tribunals, scholars and human rights organizations, including the Supreme Court of Canada, the International Court of Justice and the United Nations General Assembly.

MD, MSc., FRCPC., D.Sc (Hons) Addis Ababa University (AAU), Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto (UofT), and psychoanalyst. Staff psychiatrist at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto; at the Canadian Center for Victims of Torture for refugee mental health; and the clinic for indigenous mental health, with the Community Mental Health Program and Addictions Program; a Division of Weeneebayko Area Health Authority.

Dr. Barri Phatarfod graduated from Monash University, Victoria in 1988 and has been in general practice for 25 years. Dr Phatarfod takes an integrative approach to healthcare, and has studied Ayurveda in both the USA and India. She has worked within her own solo general practice in Bondi for many years. She is part of the Antenatal Shared Care program at the Royal Hospital for Women and also has a special interest in aged care.

Dr. Umashanie Reddy is the National Secretariat Director of the Refugee Resettlement Program. Umashanie works collaboratively with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and the resettlement service providers nationally to support the resettlement and integration of government-assisted refugees.

Her experience spans over 2 countries and 3.5 decades working with equity seeking populations in diverse diasporas in multisectoral contexts in South Africa and Canada. In 2024 Umashanie obtained her doctorate in education from the University of Western Ontario. Her experience in health emanates from South Africa and includes her work on the enactment of the first HIV Aids library in Southern Africa at the Nelson R. Mandela School of Medicine and later in Canada as the Tom Baker cancer librarian at the Tom Baker Cancer Centre, University of Calgary.

From a personal perspective Umashanie is a stage IV cancer survivor of 34 years. She is the recipient of several awards for her service to humanity including, Immigrants of Distinctions, RBC Top 25 Canadian Immigrants, Graduate of the Last Decade, and the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal.

Gabriel Schirvar (pronouns: they/them) is a leading non-binary policy analyst, researcher, and educator focusing on international lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ+) and migrant rights, health, and well-being. Gabriel has designed and led in-person and online trainings for over 1,000 humanitarian professionals around the world on a wide range of anti-oppression issues impacting migrants. They are an LGBTIQ+ Focal Point for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), where they are also a lead contributor to the foundational training package, “Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, Gender Expression, and Sex Characteristics (SOGIESC) and Migration,” co-authored with experts from IOM and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). To date, this training has been provided to over 1,500 people in more than 30 countries and remains one of only two trainings on LGBTIQ+ considerations in the humanitarian field. Gabriel has also served on the United Nations system-wide Task Team on LGBTIQ+ considerations and the UN-GLOBE board. They hold a master’s degree in Global Public Health from the George Washington University.

Dr. Jennifer Seo is an orthodontist based in Toronto with a background in interdisciplinary and hospital-based dental care. She completed her Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) degree at the University of Sydney, followed by a General Practice Residency at the University of British Columbia, where she focused on managing medically complex patients. She later pursued her orthodontic residency and clinical masters at Western University.

Dr. Seo has served as a staff hospital dentist at CAMH and as an instructor at the University of Toronto’s dental school. Her professional interests include public health, health policy, trauma-informed care, and global oral health. Passionate about advancing equitable access to care, she is actively involved in health policy advocacy through multiple non-profit organizations, including Universities Allied for Essential Medicines and the American Association of Orthodontists.