Guest Speaker : Friday, March 04, 2016
Location : Fairmont in the Ontario Room 
Topic : "My Life in Street Gangs”
 
Segun Akinsanya is a passionate, articulate and determined young man—a natural leader. But after moving from Quebec to Toronto, he found himself following the wrong crowd. At 18 he was sentenced to a five year prison term for Manslaughter.   Incarceration taught him important life lessons and he decided to change his life.
 
 
 
After he was released, Segun wanted to give something back.  He started speaking to other youth about the importance of setting and achieving goals and staying in school. It was as he was sharing the wisdom he gained from his experience that he found work helping young people who have been in conflict with the law to improve their understanding of the justice system and work as advocates for other youth who are in detention.
 
Being hired as a Youth Justice Worker marked another transformation for Segun. Through projects and events, he built skills in project management, fundraising and public speaking, but—perhaps even more importantly—he had the space and support to focus on his education and personal growth and development. He acquired the tools to both dream bigger and to realize those dreams.  His story was recently poignantly told in the February 2016 edition of Toronto Life .. link:  http://torontolife.com/city/life/my-life-in-street-gangs/