Our Team
Leah Houston
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Leah Houston is the Founder and Executive Director of Mabelle Arts. Over her fifteen years of leadership, Leah has developed strong skills related to strategic growth, governance and partnership development. In that time, Mabelle Arts has emerged as a powerful example of what's possible when people come together to make art and solve problems. With a team of compassionate, smart and imaginative colleagues, Leah and Mabelle Arts are re-defining the role of the arts in low-income communities. Leadership development and civic engagement; public space transformation and design; grassroots tower renewal and local economic development are all integral to the work of Mabelle Arts under Leah's leadership. Leah is a graduate of York University’s Environmental Studies Department and holds an M.A from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. In 2021 she was awarded the inaugural Tim Jones Creative Placemaking Award for her work in the Mabelle neighbourhood.
Elizabeth Rucker
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Elizabeth Rucker is a performer and playwright with over 20 years of experience in community-engaged and devised arts. Her training, research and work in devised play creation, as a founding member of Number Eleven Theatre, strongly informs her approaches to making art and theatre with people. She has led numerous large-scale collaborations and projects in Toronto and across Canada, most notably as the Artistic Director of Arts4All, as Story Animator at Holland Bloorview Children’s Hospital’s Centre for the Arts’ Spiral Garden program, and as an Associate Artist at Jumblies Theatre.
Emma Stewart-Small
Daniela Galaviz
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Dani is a multidisciplinary artist, performer, and educator. She was born and raised in Mexico (Cancun & Queretaro) where she studied performing arts and worked in theatre as a performer and coordinator. She has been an arts facilitator for 6 years and she holds a master's degree in Educational Technology. She is passionate about the learning process and applying the arts for the benefit of our daily lives and our development as human beings. She is a newcomer to Canada and recently graduated from the Arts Education and Community Engagement program at Centennial College.
As a personal project, she runs a YouTube channel where she shares theatre educational content for Spanish speakers.
Her artistic practices include drama, clown & physical comedy, puppetry, makeup artistry, and watercolour, but she is always willing to experiment and find something new to try.
She is very excited to be part of the team of the Welcome to the Neighbourhood program.
Douglas Uchenna MacDonald
Chico Togni
Azeb Tekelemichael Mehari
Jerry Seenauth
Lynn Lampkin
2025 Summer Youth Team
Peace Johnson
Amal Gure
Anisa Ahmed
Leen Al Mousli
Sandy Chan
Arinola Olowoporoku
Our Board
Sheila Devata-Chochinov
As a life-long resident of Etobicoke and an urban planner, Sheila has a passion for bringing people and groups together to transform our public spaces into places that connect, engage and inspire—all with the goal of demonstrating that everyone can play a part in building a better community.
Joanna Tam
Joanna Tam is a creative and empathetic researcher, with a passion for using data to empower local communities, and for using visual storytelling to effectively distil complex information. She is currently working with the Data Management Branch of Ontario's Ministry of Labour, Training, and Skills Development.
Ismail Ibrahim
Ismail Ibrahim is the General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at BC Housing, a provincial Crown corporation that develops, manages and administers affordable housing and homelessness services for people in British Columbia. He brings a practical approach to the law using his experiences as an engineer, lawyer, and executive. Ismail has extensive experience in the housing and non-profit sector through various roles, including as co-lead of the Housing Group at Robins Appleby LLP, and as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Toronto Community Housing.
Isabelle Poirier
Isabelle Poirier is a strategic executive leader who champions community-driven transformation and social infrastructure development. As founder of Intelegia, Isabelle empowers organizations across sectors—from economic development to social enterprises—to achieve sustainable growth and organizational advancement. With deep roots in both Quebec and Ontario, Isabelle brings expertise in navigating complex, mission-driven environments and building multi-stakeholder partnerships that create lasting impact. Her work bridges technological innovation with social purpose, specializing in affordable housing, sustainability standards, and community engagement. As an international speaker on community development and economic advancement, Isabelle brings strategic thinking and collaborative leadership to Mabelle Arts' vision of co-creating vibrant social infrastructure through community-engaged arts and placemaking.
Sarah Hillyer
Sarah Hillyer is a strategic senior leader and fundraiser with a focus on building strong relationships with donors, and a proven track record in securing significant individual and corporate major gifts. She is currently the Director of Development and Communications at the Dorothy Ley Hospice.
Andrea Hamilton
Andrea Hamilton is a Registered Psychotherapist (qualifying) based in Toronto, where she supports people navigating periods of transition and hardship. Andrea’s career has taken many twists and turns, but a consistent thread throughout has been a deep focus on people and place and an ability to hold both individual experience and a broader systems context at the same time. She holds Masters degrees in Urban Planning and Counselling Psychology and brings a strong background in philanthropy, having served as Vice President of Social Impact at Generation Capital from 2013 to 2023. In this role, she supported clients in aligning their capital with positive social impact and established the Balsam Foundation. Andrea is deeply interested in processes of change and how funders and communities can work together in ways that support meaningful transformation.