By Nisha Sembi

Register for the Fires of Resistance Youth Activism Conference brought to you be Council of Agencies Serving South Asians. Email nadia@cassa.on.ca to reserve a spot for you. The conference is free of charge!

Farrah Khan

At the age of 16, Farrah Khan picked up a microphone to speak out about sexual assault and has not put it down since. Named by the Toronto Star as one of 2011′s “People to Watch,” she has spent the last sixteen years working diligently to raise awareness of gender-based violence through art creation, counseling and community development. She supports women who are survivors of violence as a counselor and advocate at the Barbra Schlifer Clinic. The clinic provides legal representation, professional counselling and multilingual interpretation to 4,000 women each year.

Deb Singh

Deb is a warrior feminist activist. As a settler on TurtleIsland and as a queer, working class, woman of colour, she believes the acts of resistance and love are all part of the rent she pays to be on the planet. deb is an artist, an amateur chef and cat lover. Her greatest achievements include being the staff coordinator of Take Back the Night, being a professional listener and supporting our various communities in various ways.

Vijaya Chikermane

Vijaya is the Executive Director at the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention and has been involved in HIV, AIDS, sexual health and gender equity work in Toronto, India, and Ecuador. She has been a feminist since as far as she can remember and thoroughly enjoys dissecting and deconstructing oppression. Vijaya also sits on the Board for Women’s Health in Women’s Hands and has experience in program and organizational development, communications and capacity building. She migrated to Canada in 1995 after living in the United Arab Emirates and India and considers ‘home’ a mix of all three.

Maya Bhullar

Maya Bhullar has been a community and labour organizer for over two decades, since she first started organizing in high school and joined the fight to maintain equal opportunity scholarships at her university . Her work has involved building campaigns with labour unions, working in Africa for land rights, building political campaigns. She has a particular interest in grassroots engagement, effective representation of member interests and in helping organizations to better achieve their stated goals. Since 2004, Maya has been working with the Service Employees International Union, building global union campaigns and campaigns to organize cleaners across Canada.

Shaunga Tagore

Shaunga Tagore has always been a storyteller. Growing up as a young girl in Manitoba (her parents immigrated from West Bengal in the 70s) she would often write and draw her thoughts on bedroom walls and bathroom doors, make up plays with her friends to present to her neighbors and family, and she generally talked to herself a lot. Today she lives in Toronto and works with Asian Arts Freedom School (a radical Asian history and creative writing program for Asian-identified youth) and with Shameless Magazine (a feminist, anti-oppressive magazine for teen girls and trans youth). Her passions and excitement lie within writing, filmmaking, songwriting and burlesque dancing as modes of telling stories. She is also a certified astrology nerd. www.shaungatagore.com