UnLeadership

56Executive Leadership

Debbie Owusu-Akyeeah is the executive director of the Canadian Centre for Gender and Sexual Diversity¹ (CCGSD), Canada's national 2SLGBTQIA+ youth organization. Established in 2005 because of the founder's challenges navigating homophobia within the Catholic school system, the organization aims to empower gender and sexually diverse communities through education, research, and advocacy. After 10 years, CCGSD rebranded to better focus on a national level of diverse communities who, over the years, asked for collective, national, or regional empowerment and education for their local leadership. This shift brought about a clear mandate and vision for the transformed organization to better educate, advocate, and empower communities sustainably. This was further cemented with Debbie's appointment as the new executive director in July 2020. Debbie is an activist, campaigner, policy analyst, athlete, activist, and earring maker who likes to bring fun into whatever she does, as she works toward ensuring we build a world that is better for everyone.

(Highlights from our interview, recorded September 21, 2023.)

I JOINED CCGSD AS THEIR executive director (ED) in July 2020, at the fresh age of 28 and at the height of a global pandemic. I was committed to the organization's mission and where I, as a young queer person, wanted to see an organization like this go. A big part of that was to ensure we were weaving organizational change internally and reintroducing ourselves ...