Meet The Team!
Meet the CDLI Team!
As CDLI moves into its 10th year, we’re looking to deeply explore and support community efforts around our new vision “to take tangible actions for a socially equitable future.” Learn more about the team below and why each team member believes in the value of a future that is anti-racist, decolonial and equitable!
Meet Denyelle!
As a small team we’re excited to announce that Denyelle Fraser (she/her) has joined the CDLI team for 2024!
Get to know Denyelle:
Denyelle (she/her) joined the CDLI team in fall 2023. As an equity-based designer, Denyelle brings a unique perspective to the table, focusing not only on driving systems change using innovative approaches, but also on designing for equity and social impact.
She has a deep understanding of the ways in which design can be used as a tool for creating positive social change and is committed to using her skills to embed equity, diversity, and inclusion into all aspects of her work. Outside of her work, Denyelle is a textbook introvert that values family time with her husband and 2 yr old. A true Torontonian at heart, still adjusting to "Yahoo" since her move to Calgary in 2021. And a lover of "mockumentary" style tv sitcoms. Connect with Denyelle
Creating A Just Future!
Denyelle is guiding CDLI’s Creating Just Futures Initiative .
Denyelle on Anti-Rasicam & Decolonial Futures
“Without community, there is no liberation” - Audre Lorde
Our communities hold an immeasurable power within them. They are not only the source of our strength, but also the essence that shapes our identities and fuels our liberation. Throughout history, communities have always been our lifeline—places where we found belonging, relied on one another for protection, and shared vital resources. As a Black woman navigating a world that is designed to make me feel small, it is through the support and empowerment of my communities that I find my strength and courage.
That’s why community development and anti-racism work holds a deeply personal purpose for me. It is rooted in my own lived experiences and fueled by a desire to resist. Anti-racism and decolonization requires an explicit intention to challenge, dismantle and rebuild. I do this work through cultivating participatory environments where diverse can co-create and actively challenge exclusionary structures and systems that perpetuate harm towards communities.
Meet Tyson!
Get to know Tyson:
Tyson (He/Him) has been a familiar face around CDLI since 2015, having once worked at the Federation of Calgary Communities, ever since then CDLI has been a part of his professional career in growing as a facilitator and community developer. His personal slogan is to edify others, befriend the lonely and promote justice! Tyson is grateful to have his vocation match his values and able to bring people together through the art of facilitation. Tyson has had the delight of being part of several community initiatives on Treaty 7. A self-proclaimed troublemaker, his intention is to build communities to share power and make change. Tyson’s hobbies include dodgeball, running, playing with his Dog Karl, reading and playing games.
Tyson on a socially equitable just future
“If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because you liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together. “ - Lila Watson
Tyson started participating in systems change through the lens of anti-racism in 2016, with the Anti-Racist Organizational Change project at CommunityWise Resource Centre. Tyson developed resources, facilitated processes for non-profit organizations and understands that the development of meaningful relationships is vital. Tyson often prompts, ‘Where are your relationships? So, When the next crisis comes, who are your people to support and respond to the needs of the community.” For an equitable future, solidarity is a must! Mutual aid, communities of care, transformational justice are some of the ways in which we can support one another to reduce harm, build community and transform our communities to become more equitable.
Meet Lee-Ann!
Lee-Ann (she/her) joined the CDLI team in April 2023 after having been a network member for many years. Lee-Ann has been involved in community development in Calgary ranging from grassroots, community led initiatives to non-profit roles. She places a special focus on relationship and collaborative work, believing that we each come to the table with unique and diverse identities that are valuable. Lee-Ann is consistently exploring interconnectedness via curious questions and through challenging accepted ways of doing. “It doesn’t have to be this way.” – Andre Henry
Lee-Ann is a mum who finds life balance through deep friendship, reading, listening to music, being outdoors and creating. Personal community efforts have recently involved exploring what community looks like for new parents and the intersection of/relationship between people and the environment.
Lee-Ann is guiding Asset Based Community Development, Community Development Practitioners Gatherings and CDLI’s Partnership Table.
Tyson is guiding Success in Community Action, Asset-Based Community Development, Storytelling (Social Media) and Creating Just Futures Initiative!
Lee-Ann on the possibilities embedded in a decolonial future
When I amalgamate the knowledge I have of what a decolonial future could look like I see possibilities for everyone. When I reflect on my journey of learning and unlearning I see the possibilities that have opened up in my life, including new and impactful ways of showing up in communities.
CDLI has been a place of innovation, support, learning and inspiration for all things community development since the beginning. In our small part of the world where we talk about being strengths based, being by community for community, being concerned with empowering people to contribute; the practices of Anti-Racism and Decolonization bring possibilities.
My journey with AR&D is intertwined in all of my identities. As a mother, a university graduate, an intergenerational cycle breaker, a woman, a neighbour… If I were to think of a “start” to my journey I would return to the International Indigenous Studies and Sociology programs at University of Calgary. It is a place I found community in a way I hadn’t experienced it before. 10 years later that community is still present in my life and impacting how I learn and unlearn about the systems we live within. It is through community that I understood how I can be in better relation with others and the world around us.
A “socially equitable future” for me is bound to thriving communities where “people of diverse backgrounds feel they can inspire change in their local community.”