Tyjana Connolly

Programs Manager

As the Programs Manager, alongside the program staff she manages, Tyjana designs and delivers YCL's programs. She also continually work to ensure our programs meet the needs of our diverse youth audiences and have their intended impacts.

Tyana is a dedicated community builder, experienced in community engagement, program design, nonprofit management and implementing community adaptation initiatives grounded in equity, systems thinking, and empowerment.

She has a BA in Political Science and is currently pursuing an MA in Geography with a focus on community-led climate adaptation. She is a BIPOC Sustainable Fellow, recognized as a Corporate Knights 30 Under 30 Sustainability Leader and a recipient of the Paavo Aino Lukkari Human Rights Fellowship and SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship. Her passion is rooted in anti-racist and decolonial knowledge systems and preparing our communities for the challenges associated with environmental and climate change. Tyjana’s happy place is in the mountains and she loves music, reading & writing.

I have the privilege of living on the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, Haudenosaunee and the Mississaugas of the Credit River. This land is covered by the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement and relationship between the Anishnaabe, Mississaugas, and Haudenosaunee that acknowledges their joint commitment to protect and share the land. As a non-Indigenous person living on these lands, I acknowledge my presence and also commit to treating the land with respect and as a relative.

I also pay respect and acknowledge the many people of African descent who are not settlers but whose ancestors were forcibly displaced as part of the transatlantic slave trade against their will and made to work the lands of North America.

It is in this way that I honor and pay tribute to Indigenous peoples across Turtle Island and beyond, in the past and future, who continue to fight for sovereignty, lands and water.