The People Behind Check Your Head

BOARD MEMBERS:

Jeanie Morton Jeanie is tickled to be involved with Check. She has worked with the Otesha Project, the Pearson Seminar on Youth Leadership, and other rad community based education programs. Currently she dances with the B:C:Clettes (Vancouver’s all lady bike inspired performance collective) and teaches at Churchill Secondary. She has studied and traveled around Canada and the world, but feels most purposeful at home in BC learning from everyone around her and growing vegetables in alleys.

Graham Nelson-Zutter Graham is the CEO of FuguPhone, which he co-founder in 2006. FuguPhone leads B.C.’s telecommunications industry in both sustainable business practices and its use of open-source technology and philosophy. Incumbent communications companies are shocked that this nibble-sized business can offer much more while wasting much less. Oddly enough, the key ingredient to FuguPhone’s success is its participation community-based sharing. Graham’s involvement in Check Your Head began volunteering for the Get Your Vote On campaign. He is excited to help Check promote open-source technology and philosophy to the youthful leaders of today and tomorrow. Graham believes that the open-source movement, with it’s community-made direct participation mechanisms, inspires us to create and share our best ideas freely with each other for the betterment of all.

Rachel Marcuse Rachel completed a BA Honours in Sociology at McGill University in 2006 and moved back to her home town of Vancouver. She has worked as a freelance facilitator and for several non-profits, training organizations in anti-oppression, facilitation skills and meaningful youth engagement. Rachel has also worked as the Volunteer and Operations Manager for the Vancouver Fringe Festival and ran the 2003 Youth Health Fairs, a co-partnership between the BCCDC and Watari, where she collaborated with numerous service providers and street-involved youth. She chaired the board of directors of the Daily Publications Society, the most syndicated student newspaper in Canada, and founded the organization that implemented the first ethical purchasing policy for a Student Union in Canada. Rachel has also worked in student politics; suicide intervention and health promotion; in art for social change and much more. In 2007, Rachel was in Argentina, doing fundraising and communications with The Working World, an NGO that gives micro-credit loans to worker-run cooperatives. She is the Executive Director of the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE) and has managed campaigns at the municipal and provincial level. Rachel enjoys working with people – young and old – to help them come to their own solutions.

Andy Longhurst As a former Oregonian and newly arrived Canadian, Andy believes in the importance of global youth activism. While pondering why young people aren’t politically engaged, he decided to do his best to try and change that. Andy is passionate about the work Check Your Head does because he believes that youth are the key in creating positive change. After seeing the lack of young voter participation in both Canadian and U.S. elections, he has made it his goal to encourage his peers to get involved and become active citizens.

Kyla Epstein Kyla Epstein has been a board member since 2004 and is very honoured to be part of such a fine organization. In addition to dedicating a little bit of time to CYH, Kyla works as both the Administrative Director of CoDevelopment Canada and as the mother of Max. Kyla has worked in both the corporate and not-for-profit sector and believes that both have benefited from her organizational know-how and her uninvited opinions. Kyla currently supports the idea that too much homework does not lead to increased intelligence or higher learning.

Lee Bensted Lee Bensted has a passion for making change creative and fun. Her experience with social and environmental change work straddles the realms of education, international development, activism and art. She believes that everyday things – a pacific salmon, a t-shirt, a coffee bean – can be among our greatest teachers. Lee is constantly inspried by the strength and depth of people’s committment to making the world a better place and this is one of the reasons why she is drawn to Check Your Head and the community of people it knits together.

Luisa Irene Fisher Luisa first fell in love with Check Your Head as a participant in Check’s fabulous high school workshops — and now, in addition to facilitating the occasional workshop, she helps to plan Check’s Getting Global film nights. You may have seen her at a concert ’round town in her capacity as a music writer for Streethawk Magazine. (She writes about other things, too, for other places.) Luisa is in awe of great story-tellers.

STAFF MEMBERS

Kaitlin Pelletier – Co-director

Kaitlin is thrilled to be out from behind her textbook where she has been theorizing social change for 6 years, and finally be acting on it all by joining the amazing team at Check. Drawing on disciplines of women’s studies and health science, Kaitlin’s Masters research aimed to further understand the mechanisms through which social factors contribute to environmental exposures and health inequalities. Kaitlin has most recently been involved in a college speaking tour in BC on topics such as the gendered nature of environmental health, the beauty myth and body image issues in adolescents, and a media deconstruction of greenwashing. Kaitlin suspects that being a good educator is a lifelong journey of learning and experience, and feels that part of the joy of all this is witnessing youth in their potential to transform.

Sean Magee – Co-director

Sean was born and raised in a small town in Ontario, moved to BC to enjoy the natural beauty of the mountains and ocean, and study Environmental Science and Sustainable Community Development at SFU.  He was first introduced to Check through the Get Your Vote On campaign when he was a Director of the Simon Fraser Student’s Society. He also worked on creating a composting program for SFU while being a Director.   Education, learning, sustainability and social justice are his passions, and luckily he gets to share them with youth and adults alike as one of the coordinators of the Sustainable Schools Project. As an outdoor enthusiast, most of his spare time is spent experiencing and learning about our natural world and how societies interact with it. And if you ever need a canoe or kayak lesson, he’s been an instructor for about 10 year. Thanks for reading.

Anna Hilliar – Development Director

Bio coming soon.