Our Board of Directors
Marianne Park
Marianne is an experienced facilitator / instructor. She has worked in the violence against women field for over 22 years. She is experienced in the field of disability awareness and advocacy having the distinction of being a woman with a disability.
Marianne has presented workshops and seminars throughout the province to a number of diverse groups. These groups include: police officers, shelter workers, health care professionals, developmental service workers and social justice advocates. The sessions have special emphasis on the issues of domestic violence, violence against women with disabilities, disability sensitivity, and workplace harassment.
She is a member of the Board of Directors for DAWN Ontario - Disabled Women's Network. She is co-Chair of Echo Improving Women's Health in Ontario.
Marianne holds a BA Hon in cultural anthropology from the University of Windsor and an MA in cultural / medical anthropology from the University of Tennessee. Marianne lives in Woodstock, Ontario.
Barbara Anello
Barbara Anello is a social justice activist who uses technology as a tool to promote change.
Barbara currently serves as Chair of DAWN Ontario, a director on the National Anti-Poverty Organization (NAPO) board, working with and on behalf of low income communities in Ontario to address issues of income security and poverty.
Barbara has been recognized for her work in the voluntary sector with the Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship (1995) and the Outstanding Achievement Award for Volunteerism in Ontario (2004) for her vigilance and defence of the rights of marginalized communities
Kate Stephenson
M. Kate Stephenson is currently serving as Director of Legal Services at the Human Rights Legal Support Centre while on a leave of absence from the law firm WeirFoulds LLP in Toronto. Her litigation practice at WeirFoulds focuses on human rights, constitutional and administrative law. She has been counsel in several cases involving low income people, often on a pro bono basis. She was seconded for two years (2002-2004) to the Clinic Resource Office, where she was the Clinic Barrister doing court-based litigation for clinics all across the province.
Some of her cases include Falkiner (in which the Court of Appeal unanimously struck down Ontario's "spouse in the house" welfare rule), Iness (a case at the human rights Tribunal involving discrimination against social assistance recipients), Graham (a constitutional challenge to the 'living with parent' welfare rule), Jeevaratnam (a constitutional challenge to the reduction of welfare amounts given to sponsored immigrants) and others. She has acted for intervenor groups such as the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), and the National Anti-Poverty Organization.
Kate was a member of the National Legal Committee of LEAF from 1999 to 2004, and she chaired that committee for three years. As a law student, she was the Director of the Centre for Spanish Speaking People's Student Legal Clinic. After law school she sat on the Board of Kensington Bellwoods Community Legal Clinic.
Lisa Jamieson
Lisa has been working as a community developer in Ottawa for the past 16 years. In the past, her community work focused on tenant rights and homelessness. Currently, Lisa works part-time with the Canadian Mental Health Association, Ottawa Branch, where she coordinates the Financial Accessibility Committee.
Through her work in bringing together community partners, Lisa has been part of a number of exciting initiatives including establishing a discounted city bus pass for recipients of ODSP, developing a community-based ODSP Application Support Worker project, and working on banking issues experienced by people with serious mental illnesses.
Lisa is a member of the ODSP Action Coalition and works locally in Ottawa on many ODSP issues. Lisa and her husband have two boys and too many pets.
Roberta Oshkawbewisens-Martin
Roberta is an Aboriginal woman who has been involved with First Nations communities and urban communities since 1984. As an educator, supporter, and coordinator of programs and as Board of Directors member to various groups promoting wellness, she believes in community strength, whether it be Aboriginal culture and tradition or working with community grass roots women.
Roberta is a Life Skills Coach. The skills she brings to the Board are in the areas of addiction, family violence, community development, and group facilitation.
Roberta is interested in promoting and educating people about their rights, advocating for people that the law considers less fortunate, and helping to build solid foundations for people at risk. Roberta speaks Odawa / Ojibwe.
Gerda Kaegi
Gerda is a community activist concerned about the many issues facing the legal aid system in Ontario, which has increased her concern about the survival of clinic poverty law. She is currently an executive board member of the Association of Community Legal Clinics of Ontario and A-WAY, a consumer survivor courier service.
Her background is political science. She is a retired professor from Ryerson University's School of Public Administration and Department of Politics. Her academic and teaching work focused on public policy and government. She has been a long-standing member of Canadian Pensioners Concerned, which is an organization concerned with the well-being of people of all ages. She has helped write many CPC briefs to government covering such topics as poverty, minimum wage, housing and supportive housing, pension issues, and education and training for immigrants and low-income people. She has appeared before committees of both federal and provincial parliament, where the issue of poverty has been a central focus.
Gerda believes we must fight very hard for the preservation and enhancement of poverty law services in this province. Her vision for poverty law is that it is accessible to all that need it.
Lina Anani
Lina is currently a lawyer in private practice focusing on immigration / refugee law and criminal law. She has a BA and MA from York University and has carried out extensive work in the areas of human rights and women's rights.
Lina has been on a number of boards, including DAWN Ontario, Amnesty International Canada, Community Legal Aid Service Programme at Osgoode Hall Law School, and, currently, the Canadian Centre for International Justice.
Norma MacKenzie
Norma MacKenzie is a staff lawyer with the Nipissing Community Legal Clinic in North Bay, Ontario. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Studies from the University of Prince Edward Island and a law degree from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. She is currently a Board member of the West Ferris Day Care.
Craig Foye
Craig Foye is a lawyer with McQuesten Legal & Community Services, a community legal clinic in the east end of Hamilton. He is a member of the Income Security Working Group (ISWG) in Hamilton, is currently the chair of the Human Rights Committee of the ISWG, and is also a member of the Food, Shelter and Housing Advisory Committee to Hamilton City Council.
Craig is a volunteer Board member in Hamilton with the Community Centre for Media Arts, and recently resigned after five years on the Board of the Housing Help Centre.
Prior to coming to work with the clinics, Craig was the Homelessness Project Coordinator with the Social Planning & Research Council of Hamilton.
Sayonara Mairena
Sayonara Mairena has been working at South Etobicoke Community Legal Clinic as a community legal worker since 1991. She does community organizing and law reform in the areas of Income Maintenance, CPP, Employment Standards and Employment Insurance.
Sayonara has organized orientation sessions for newcomers and does summary advice and referrals for clinic clients.
Between 1980 and 1984, Sayonara was a Junior Law Professor at the National University Law School in Nicaragua.
Deirdre McDade
Deirdre is a staff lawyer at the Community Advocacy and Legal Centre in Belleville. She obtained an honours degree in Political Science and her law degree from Queens University.
Called to the bar in 1995, Deirdre was in private practice doing litigation until she joined the clinic in September 1999. She has been a poverty law lawyer for 10 years practicing in the areas of social assistance law and human rights. Deirdre does all the appellant work at the clinic in Belleville and is actively involved in the clinic's community development work.
Deirdre is active in the movement to end violence against women. She is a past Board member of the Sexual Assault Crisis Centre in Kingston, Three Oaks Shelter for Abused Women, and a former member of the Quinte Coordinating Committee Against Violence and the Dedicated Domestic Violence Court.
She is currently a member of the Eastern Region Income Maintenance Study Group and the Clinic Human Rights Working Group. She has been involved with local community groups working to end poverty as well as local violence against women service providers. She is excited about working at a provincial level with other anti-poverty advocates to address systemic issues.
René Adams
Born in Cape Town, South Africa; René Adams is a single mother of two and an Ontario Disability Support Program recipient. René is a dedicated community organizer, a member of the local Community Police Partnership, a member of the Army, Navy, Air Force Veterans of Canada, Community Advocate the with The Stop Community Food Centre’s Community Advocacy Project. She is also an active volunteer through The Stop's Civic engagement department Speaker's bureau and Bread & Brick Davenport social action group. Rene also supports the work of the Montreal & Toronto chapters ATD Fourth World Movement and Schools Without Borders.
Rene has been the voice of marginalized families & children as a spokesperson for Campaign 2000, a great supporter of the Toronto Board of Health’s call for a nutritional supplement to be added to social assistance cheques, and an active member of the 25 in 5 Network on poverty reduction. She advised on the University of Toronto’s Centre for Urban & Community Health’s first Symposium on Family Homelessness and the Skyworks Foundation’s Homesafe Toronto documentary on family homelessness across Canada, which is currently in the filming stage.
A graduate of the Maytree Foundation’s Leaders for Change program, René was the only individual recipient of the Wellesley Institute’s 2008 – ‘’10 in 10 Urban Health Award’’ for Community Leadership and Participation over the past decade. Rene was the first female Naval Reserve Boatswain to be hired in Toronto. She is an Ontario Volunteer Service Award winner and received an Honorary RNAO (Registered Nurses of Ontario) Membership in 2009. She draws on her own experience of exclusion, marginalization & homelessness to challenge inequality & advocate for positive social change.
Christine Watts
Christine is an ODSP recipient and part-time rural librarian. As a single parent of two bi-racial young adults – one with a mental illness, she has studied equity issues and become a seasoned advocate.
Her social justice activities include membership in: Ontario Social Safety Network (OSSN), Northumberland Coalition Against Poverty (NCAP), Justice for Migrant Workers (J4MW), Make Poverty History (MPH), OCSJ and ODSPaction.
Christine was a partner in developing a Mobile Food Bank in Northumberland County and Poverty Myth-busting workshops within the community. She feels all Ontarians must have access to environmentally sustainable options. Her vision includes true equality for First Nations people – in terms of their health, housing and educational options. Christine believes that all workers’ rights in Ontario have been steadily eroded in recent years. Costs of living and education continue to rise. Our youth need to have hope for their future and trust that our system is just. As more people reluctantly join the low-income experience, our need for law and policy supports continues to grow.
She is pleased to add her voice to the ISAC board
Shelley A.M. Gavigan
B.A. LL.B., M.A., LL.M, S.J.D. (of the bars of Ontario and Saskatchewan) is a Full Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School and member of the Graduate Faculties in Law, Sociology and Women’s Studies at York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She holds graduate degrees in law and criminology and has taught in both disciplines. Following graduation from law school in 1975, she articled in a rural-based community legal clinic and continued to practise in Saskatchewan, as a legal clinic lawyer (principally in the areas of criminal and family law), and briefly as a human rights lawyer, until 1980, when she moved to Toronto to pursue graduate studies. Professor Gavigan was appointed in 1984 to the faculty of the School of Criminology at Simon Fraser University. She joined the Osgoode faculty in 1986 and has twice served as Academic Director of Parkdale Community Legal Services in Toronto. Her research interests focus on socio-legal theory and history in the areas of Canadian criminal law; law and poverty; legal regulation and definition of family; access to justice and social justice. Her current research builds on her 2008 doctoral dissertation, Criminal Law on the Aboriginal Plains: The First Nations and the First Criminal Court in the North-West Territories, 1876-1903 and also includes a research project studying access to justice and marginalized youth. Her publications include The Legal Tender of Gender: Welfare Law and the Regulation of Women’s Poverty, Shelley A.M. Gavigan & Dorothy E. Chunn, eds. (forthcoming, London, Hart/Onati Series). The Politics of Abortion with Jane Jenson and Janine Brodie (Oxford, 1992) and several articles informed by feminist, socio-legal and historical perspectives on the legal regulation of familial relations, lesbian parenting, abortion and access to justice. Her areas of teaching include Criminal Law, Family Law, Children & Law, Poverty Law and Clinical Legal Education. Professor Gavigan has held appointments as Osgoode’s Associate Dean, as Director of Clinical Education, and recently completed serving her third term as Academic Director of Osgoode's Intensive Program in Poverty Law at Parkdale Community Legal Services.
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