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Leena Sharma Seth

Leena Sharma Seth
Leena has been working to empower communities and individuals for over two decades. Passionate about social justice and creating equitable communities, Leena has leveraged this passion in service for organizations that include Global Vision (Kuala Lumpur), Big Brothers Big Sisters of Halton, and the Halton Poverty Roundtable. Leena is a trained community mediator and completed a Master's in Conflict Analysis & Management at Royal Roads University in 2012. Leena enjoys designing inclusive processes and facilitating spaces that are conducive to connection, communication, and collective action. She recently completed the Circle Way Practicum, deep training in a body of work that draws on our collective, ancient, and inherent wisdom to gather inclusively. Leena hopes to mainstream “circle” as a collaborative process that teaches organizations and communities to work together more holistically. Leena is a Collective Impact champion, having witnessed its power to accelerate impact in her work at the Halton Poverty Roundtable, and looks forward to supporting communities in Canada to realize their collaborative goals to eliminate poverty in their respective communities.

Recent Posts

Update on Ontario's Basic Income Pilot

Posted by Leena Sharma Seth on August 20, 2018

Only hours after we posted a blog exploring reflections on the Ontario basic income pilot, two weeks ago, the Ontario government announced the cancellation of the pilot within 100 days. The Ontario basic income pilot, which reached its full enrolment in April of this year, with 4000 participants, in Thunder Bay, Hamilton, and Lindsay, was scheduled to run for three years, with an in-depth evaluation of the impact of this pilot afterwards. The Progressive Conservatives are discontinuing it after only eight months — despite Premier-elect (now Premier) Doug Ford’s commitment to continuing the pilot if successfully elected.

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Basic Income in Practice: Reflections from the Ontario Basic Income Pilot

Posted by Leena Sharma Seth on July 30, 2018

The Ontario Basic Income pilot project is just over a year into its three year mandate and, it’s clear, from the emerging narrative of pilot participants, the provincially-funded program announced in 2017 is already changing lives and restoring a sense of dignity. In Hamilton, Thunder Bay and Lindsay, Ontario 4,000 people are now enrolled in this social policy experiment to determine whether providing a basic income enables low income participants to maintain housing, eat better, stay healthier and engage in work.

In May, Hamilton hosted the 17th annual North American Basic Income Congress. The 2018 Congress was organized in collaboration with McMaster University, the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, Low Income Families Together (in Toronto), and other partners. The Congress brought together basic income pilot participants, academics, politicians, researchers, community allies, and academic champions of the basic income concept from across the globe. 

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Community Benefits Summit Highlights Opportunity for More Inclusive Prosperity

Posted by Leena Sharma Seth on April 3, 2018

Two types of social wealth building initiatives are on the rise: Community Benefit Agreements (CBA) and Social Procurement. Scotland, Los Angeles, the Vancouver Olympics, and even the 2015 Toronto Pan Am Games/Parapan Am Games were amongst the first to adopt CBA's and social procurement adoption. In fact, Ontario is the first Canadian jurisdiction to pass legislation on CBAs. Ontario’s Bill 6, the Infrastructure for Jobs and Prosperity Act, received Royal Ascent in 2015 and the regulations to support this policy are currently in development.

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Hello Fellow Social Change Agents - An Introduction

Posted by Leena Sharma Seth on February 20, 2018

Hello fellow Social Change Agents!

I am wrapping up my second week here as an official member of the Tamarack Family and have been reflecting on my experience so far. 

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Cities Reducing Poverty Summit: A Catalyst for Community-level Change

Posted by Leena Sharma Seth on March 7, 2017

The 2017 Cities Reducing Poverty Summit: When Business is Engaged event, hosted by the City of Hamilton, is fast approaching and I can barely contain my excitement that this event is literally happening in our backyard.  We’ve got a significant contingent going this year and I look forward to sharing this inspiring learning opportunity with my members and volunteers.

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