Bilingual Coordinator
National Women’s Network at OCASI - Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, Toronto, ON
Expertise: Migrant women, human trafficking, gender-based violence, qualitative research, social justice and human rights
Leah Evangelista Woolner has 10 years of experience working in research, advocacy, and direct service provision with racialized and migrant women facing various forms of structural and interpersonal violence. She is currently the Bilingual Coordinator of the National Women’s Network at OCASI – Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants, an initiative seeking to build collective community power among racialized, refugee, and im/migrant women’s organizations in Canada.
Leah has worked on various qualitative research projects exploring sexual orientation and gender identity refugee claims, wartime sexual violence, children born of rape, and refugee service provision. She has also overseen a psychosocial support program for precarious status migrant women survivors of exploitation, coercion, and violence, and is a former executive committee member of PINAY Quebec, a grassroots organization for migrant Filipina caregivers in Montreal. She holds a Master of Social Work from McGill University and Bachelor of Fine-Arts from Concordia University.