Toumai is a social justice leader whose life and career revolve around a celebration of intersectionality and unlikely partnerships.

A Haitian-Israeli Montreal native, Toumai specializes in cross-sector partnerships and is passionate about communications as a tool to shift power structures.

MEET TOUMAI

Individuals can influence change. We build and break systems, and we shape the world around us. There are all sorts of ways to go about it. Some changes take time, or happen in very small increments. But when we see and feel the impact we’re making, the passion and motivation to do more continue to grow.

There are other moments when the system feels so broken and rigged that it’s easy to lose faith in the possibility of meaningful change. But then I look around me at the many bright and committed people I come across in my day-to-day, people fighting for equality, for independence, for justice, and sometimes simply for themselves, and I am filled with renewed energy and inspiration.

- Toumai Kafri

Change is possible

Toumai Kafri in a refugee camp

The Grande-Synthe Refugee Camp

I recently came across a short two-page report I’d written in 2016 for work. The report is a dry and technical summary of what is one of the saddest memories I hold.

That year, I’d been asked by the humanitarian organization I was working with to conduct a needs assessment in a makeshift refugee camp whose population had exploded almost overnight. I led a small but highly-experienced team…