Harvard Serves: Empowering Youth in Marginalized Communities

Wednesday, March 5, 2014, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m.

Please join us as members of our Harvard community share about how they are empowering youth in marginalized communities. Gillian Mason will moderate a panel discussion with Matthew Boulos, Jamie Purdon, and John Beebe.

Event Details:
Location: McKinsey and Company
110 Charles Street West
Toronto, ON M5S 1K9

Event Registration:
Although this is a free event, registration is required.

About the Panelists:
Matt Boulos (JD 2008) is a lawyer, businessman, and founder of Teen Legal Helpline. Prior to starting Teen Legal Helpline he was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and RBC Capital Markets. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School (JD), MIT (Killam Fellow), and the University of Toronto (BA). He is admitted to the New York bar and is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper.

Jamie Purdon (MPA/MC 2010) is the cofounder and President of RPA consultants. As president, Jamie is responsible for the creation of all strategic program material. He is also a founding director of the Sorious Samura Foundation. The Foundation works to develop investigative journalists in Africa. He has also works with Third Street for Youth a program that focuses on leadership development for young people growing up in Toronto's priority neighbourhoods. Jamie was one of the more influential journalists in Canada. He was responsible for the daily newsgathering operations for the CBC both domestically and internationally. He is a multi- award winning television producer, and has led, or created many of the outstanding programs in Canadian radio, including, This Morning, As it Happens, and The Current. He also directed CBC’s federal and provincial election coverage. Jamie has degrees from York University, Ryerson, and the University of Windsor. He is also a graduate of the Kennedy school of Government at Harvard, where he received a Masters in Public Administration.

John Beebe is the manager of outreach for Samara, Canada’s leading charity dedicated to improving political participation by all Canadians. His work is focused on developing partnerships and programs that reach and engage Canadians who are not involved in politics, including youth. Prior to his work with Samara, John worked for Pathways to Education’s national office developing and leading academic support programs for students who face significant academic challenges. John’s varied career has included working as a freelance photographer, high school social studies teacher and Chief of Staff to a United States Congressman (not necessarily in that order). He has built photo studios on the streets of Toronto and in the heart of the Democratic National Convention, taken kids from Maine to China, and helped lead losing races for the US Senate (and participated in winning races for the US Presidency). John is a graduate of Tufts University and earned his Master’s Degree from the School for Advanced International Studies at John’s Hopkins University. He is the proud parent of two highly engaged youth and married to the writer Peggy Moss.

Gillian Mason is President of ABC Life Literacy Canada. ABC’s vision is a Canada where everyone has the literacy skills they need to live a fully engaged life. Gillian joined as President in May 2013. Mason joins ABC from the Centre for City Ecology, where she held the role of Executive Director since 2011. During her leadership there, she led all aspects of the start-up of the organization including developing an urban literacy platform and developing key partnerships for enabling city-building and community development. Prior to joining the Centre for City Ecology, Mason was the Senior Vice-President, Strategic Initiatives and Community Partnerships for United Way Toronto. She started with the United Way in 2007 after 13 years with the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM). CAPAM is an international membership association of senior public officials which she helped to found in 1994, where she was the second Executive Director and CEO. Prior to CAPAM, Mason was Vice President of the Canadian Urban Institute, which she also helped to found. In the late 1980s, she worked in Ottawa, ON with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM.) Mason currently serves as a Vice Chair, Toronto Parks and Trees Foundation, and Vice-Chair, Diaspora Dialogues. From 1998-2008, she was member and then Chair of the Toronto Public Library Board, and member and Vice Chair of the Toronto Public Library Foundation. She holds a Masters in Public Administration from the University of Western Ontario and a Bachelor of Environmental Studies in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Waterloo.