Next Up

Moving to Ottawa almost a decade ago from Barrie Ontario, Natasha is currently finishing a degree at Carleton University. She is majoring in Political Science with a specific focus on Indigenous Governance and Minority Rights. Her past employment includes positions at the National Association of Friendship Centres where she was tasked with annual reports on the state of the Indigenous Friendship Centre movement, as well as working at the Assembly of First Nations. Future goals involve continued work with Indigenous Groups, learning more of her Ojibwe language and heritage, and asking the perennial 'should I have another coffee?'.

Sudesh was born and raised in Bhutanese Refugee Camp in Nepal. He lived at the refugee camp for 16 years of his life. He represents Nepali speaking Southern Bhutanese culture. He immigrated to Canada in 2011, and currently he is enrolled in his second year of social service work at Algonquin college.

He is passionate about working with newcomer/immigrants and refugee youths. He has been working at the Youth Service Bureau of Ottawa with the Ethno-cultural Youth Advisory Committee. He advocates on behalf of newcomer youth’s experiences and has a strong passion for developing community organizations. He engages newcomer youths and educates on the importance of preserving cultural identity in order to integrate in a diverse community. He uses his personal life experiences to motivate other youths and educate people with his perspective. His career goal is to dedicate his work to serving refugee populations in different countries and helping newcomers to integrate. 

Amber has an infectious smile, compassionate, humbling persona with a fierce, independent, bold attitude that leads her in her pursuit for social and economic justice and activism. Being raised in a rural, fruit farm community just outside of Hamilton, Ontario has given her this small town, city girl outlook on life. Hamilton, the Steel City will always be her home as steel, labour and activism has been passed down through generations of Steel working family members. She was raised by a single mom and has 4 brothers, 1 sister and her family continues to grow with nieces and nephews, whom she adores . She is always surrounding herself with strong womyn - from her mother, to her Master's supervisor an amazing Marxist, feminist role model, to her inspiring fembot comrades, to now learning and embracing many unreal political opportunities with MP Niki Ashton and the Bernie Bus . Amber's main social and economic interests include: women and work; labour rights; youth and gender justice; ending sexual violence against womyn and creating a more accessible, equitable criminal justice system; decolonizing our education system and integrating feminist, Marxist, antiracism, voices and history into the Ontario curriculum; implementing basic income to abolish poverty; and eradicating capitalism with the development of socialism for the working class. When she is not researching, writing, or reading she is playing volleyball, eating and making pizza, trying new wines, painting, facetiming with family and friends back home, snapchatting or netflixing. Amber moved to Ottawa to complete her second Master's degree and in this time she has struggled to build a solid social justice network and connect to the community, but through NextUp she has been able to find solidarity with the activists in this network and is hopeful for the continued connections and activism to come with the numerous NextUpers.

Ashley moved to Ottawa to start her undergraduate degree at the University of Ottawa, a big change from the small hamlet she grew up in! Eager to explore the world of social justice she dove into student politics, becoming Co-President of the Society for Women's Empowerment, Director of Communications for the Development Student Association, an OPIRG board member and an elected representative of the SFUO's Board of Administration. As a new graduate she is looking forward to dedicating more time to her job as a community organizer at ACORN - a grassroots community group of low and moderate income people fighting for economic and social justice issues such as affordable healthy homes, disability/welfare rights and a living wage. Outside of work you can find her playing volleyball, sketching in her notebook,  dreaming of her next trip abroad, being a typical cancer (hit her up if you're a scorpio), eating nachos or hanging out with her cat Astro.

Stacey is passionate about building inclusive social movements and creating an equitable world. Her work has included: calling for Canadian government accountability for its policies in Latin America; advocating for corporate accountability in Canadian mining operations abroad; providing peer support to womxn who've experienced sexual violence; and engaging in ecumenical & multifaith social justice initiatives. She is particularly inspired by thinking and actions by Indigenous womxn defending their territories from transnational mining in Guatemala. Currently, Stacey lives in Montreal, on the traditional territory of the Kanien'kehá:ka people.

Tiffany Rose was born in London, ON but considers Windsor, ON her home. She moved to Ottawa in 2014 for a fresh start. Tiffany is passionate about making a difference in issues regarding homelessness, addiction, mental health, sex work, women's abuse, and child abuse (specifically, Shaken Baby Syndrome).

Currently, her work consists of community-based research. Her ideal job would be working with youth and women in the community on harm reduction and drug use. Her work and passion is motivated by personal lived experiences. Some of Tiffany’s influential female role models include Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana, and Rola Osman. When Tiffany isn’t working and pursuing community initiatives, you can find her watching Orange is the New Black, Wentworth, and Dexter. She loves the colour purple as well as Greek and Caribbean food, and considers coffee and chips her vices.

Rachel was born in Madison, Wisconsin and moved to Ottawa when she was seven. She was raised Quaker which was her entry into activism because of the community's progressive history. 

Rachel graduated from the University of Waterloo with a peace and conflict studies degree, with minors in music and psych. She is now working part-time at causeway foundation, volunteering at Shawnjeagamik drop in centre and Ten Thousand Villages AND taking a fundraising course at Algonquin.

Being an activist, Rachel’s interests include intersectional feminism, LGBTQIAP issues, Indigenous rights, disability rights and way too much more to list. Rachel has also worked and volunteered with organizations like the Canadian Friends Service Committee, KAIROS Canada, Project Ploughshares, and the Nobel Women’s Initiative.

After all of that, in her free time, Rachel likes to knit, go swing dancing and sing. 

Meet Braydon Dunn! Born and raised in Aurora, Ontario (just north of Toronto), Braydon has been active in expanding and shaping his progressive politics through constant open-minded learning and unlearning. He is currently working on his BA Honours degree in Human Rights at Carleton University. In his time there, he has been expanding his activist efforts through his involvement with groups on campus, like SAIA-Carleton (Students Against Israeli Apartheid), of which he's a committed member.

As a firm bottom-up grassroots believer, Braydon hopes to strengthen and build genuine solidarity with various communities. He has a special interest in refugee rights, rights of displaced persons, and water provision rights.

In his spare time, Braydon enjoys reading as many books as he can (particularly non-fiction), creative writing, as well as perspective and macro photography.

Above all, Braydon believes in taking down capitalism along with the Oxford comma!

She is happiest when she’s busy, so she currently sits on the board of directors at OPIRG-Carleton, is an executive with the Carleton Muslim Student’s Association, and is a member of Students Against Israeli Apartheid on top of being a full-time student. In her free time she can be found either watching re-runs of The Office on Netflix or sleeping.