Our Team

Learn more about our people. Scroll down for the Core Team’s bios, or click one of the links to learn more about a team:

• Northside Rising
• Turning the Tide
• Between the Bridges

Louise Adongo (she/her)

Executive Director

Full speaker bio: Louise Adongo (PDF) | Louise Adongo (Word) | View on LinkedIn

Louise Adongo is a bold and grounded leader with 10+ years’ experience in systems change, policy and evaluation. She brings care and intention to uncovering the roots of tangled problems, thus enabling shifts to greater resilience, sustainability and impact.

The pandemic has taught us that we need to re-envision the way our communities work: I believe that co-creating more nimble, transparent and creative institutional spaces is key to this reinvention. 

Jocelyn Li (they/them)

Director Strategic Initiatives & Partnerships

Jocelyn Li is Inspiring Communities’ Director of Strategic Initiatives & Partnership. They are responsible for leading strategic projects and growing partnerships.

Jocelyn brings experience as a metalsmith, cultural producer and advisor over a span of 10 years, primarily working in the non-profit sector across Ontario and Nova Scotia.

Since working as an advocate and collaborator on cultural, health boards and municipal development committees, they have observed the treatment of archaic, inherited systems as a one-size-fits-all solution harmful and regressive. 

Their intention at Inspiring Communities is to share creative insight into the pragmatics of systems-change, continuously seeking alternatives to better serve a growing and diverse population.  While their approach is to integrate and implement “theory into practice”, their strategies are invested in cultural cross-pollination for social innovation, collective learning and healing for community wellness, and sustainable growth for enduring resilience.

Charlene Boyce (she/they)

Communications Manager

View on LinkedIn

Charlene Boyce is Inspiring Communities’ Communications Manager. She is responsible for storytelling, and communicating the learnings, stories and experiences of those engaged in social change across the Atlantic Provinces and beyond. Her toolkit includes writing for many purposes and media, graphic design / illustration, oral history skills, meeting design and facilitation and social media community building.

“Our history in this province has shown that we have the fortitude, resourcefulness and resilience to overcome serious trauma. When we can internalize the lessons and yet overcome the trauma… oh, the world we can build!”

Community Engagement Specialist

Treno Morton is Inspiring Communities’ Research Analyst. He is responsible for supporting projects involving strategic partnerships with other organizations. Before his time at Inspiring Communities, Treno worked as a management intern at Triangle Strategy consulting firm. Treno also has experience working for the O.N.E. North End, an organization whose goal is to create a more inclusive North End and lower the unemployment rate of African Nova Scotian Youth province-wide.

Born and raised in North End Halifax, in the predominantly Black community of Uniacke Square, he is no stranger to racism, inequality and gentrification. This is where Treno’s passion for inclusion, social equality and relentless work ethic comes from. Treno hopes to use his education to serve as a role model to other black youth, and help counteract the gentrification he’s seen troubling his community over the years.

Treno is a recent graduate of Queen’s University, with a degree in Geography and Planning, a certificate in planning and a minor in Global Development Studies. Looking to be the change he wants to see in his community, Treno co-founded Fumes Rolling Papers in July 2020 with his two brothers, a venture important to him due to the lack of Black ownership in the legal cannabis industry, like many other industries, and because he hopes to destigmatize the views surrounding cannabis, as it helps Treno to treat his epilepsy.

In his free time, Treno enjoys investing, crypto, sports and anything related to self-improvement. His favourite pastime, however, is spending quality time with his mother and family.

“I feel incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity to work in my hometown and community, and use my education and lived experience to have a positive impact on underrepresented peoples and communities, but even more so to do it with an organization that advocates and fights for a cause that aligns so well with the views and believes of my own.”

Manal Salha (she/her)

Finance Manager

Manal Salha brings to Inspiring Communities an overabundance of qualifications, having served as chief accountant to several firms in Kuwait. With the Board Treasurer, she manages all things financial for the organization. As a new Canadian, she brings valuable insights and an international perspective.

Elissama Menezes (she/her)

Co-Lead, Innovating for Impact

Elissama Menezes is a Project Co-Lead with Inspiring Communities. Sheis responsible for conducting Social Research and Development through a participative, experiential learning approach to improve the sense of belonging among newcomers.

Elissama has several years of working experience in the intersection of environmental and social justice. She has worked as a research assistant, project manager, shipping specialist, teacher, educational coordinator, tour guide, travel agent, and deckhand in a vessel built to be the greenest ship afloat. Elissama is a shaker and community builder, and her work will aim to improve newcomers’ connection with their communities through social innovation.

What excites you about working at IC?

I am very excited about connecting with inspiring people working towards changing communities and places. I am also looking forward to being immersed in a project with experimental learning as an approach. 

What book has influenced you greatly and how?

Tistou: The Boy with Green Thumbs. I read this book when I was six years old, and it planted a seed in my heart that I can transform the place I live and impact the communities around me by connecting with them through my soul and passion. 

Ebisindo Ogon (she/her)

Operations Coordinator

Ebisindo Ogon (Bibi) is Inspiring Communities. Operations Coordinator. She helps manage Operations & Finance at IC by identifying and diagnosing problem areas and making suggestions for improvements to facilitate and adapt new processes by updating or drafting new procedures based on existing policies. Prior to IC, Bibi worked at Lion’s Roar Foundation handling all customer relations ranging from the store to online subscriptions and courses.
What excites you about the year to come at IC?

“I am most excited about the changes to come at IC. The team is growing, the scope is changing, as well as implementing new procedures and policies, we are moving into an Intermediary phase, and I am very excited to witness that.” 

What song best describes your life?

“A song that best describes me is an original, “Right Now” by The B. – It basically reads “Right now is the Right time for me”. This basically means I am not ahead or behind in terms of where I’m meant to be, I am present, building things and relationships, making decisions, and implementing in the now.”