Meet the WOW 2014 Chairs
Louisa Taylor is an award-winning journalist and communications consultant recognized for her reporting on immigration, health, community and international development. Born and raised in Ottawa, Louisa has also lived in Toronto, Montreal and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Her work has appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, the Toronto Star, The Economist and NewCanadianMedia.ca. A passionate community catalyst, Louisa can often be found organizing events around her favourite themes of storytelling, diversity and innovation. She is one of the co-founders and co-ordinators of The Travers Debates, a popular fundraiser on Parliament Hill that brings journalists and politicians together to support a foreign reporting fellowship. More recently, Louisa created Datafest Ottawa, Canada’s first hackathon on migration issues, an exciting weekend of creative collaboration between journalists, settlement workers, researchers, web developers and software engineers.
Louisa says: “I was honoured and excited to be invited to co-chair Welcoming Ottawa Week. It’s a fantastic opportunity to bring old and new Canadians together to celebrate what we have in Ottawa, and look ahead to the great city we’re building.”
A translator by trade, Kenyan-born Sarah Onyango is a well-known fixture on Ottawa’s community media scene. She hosts the monthly African cultural program Fontonfrom, on Rogers TV Cable 22 – Ottawa as well as the weekly radio programs, Black on Black and Afrika Revisited on CHUO 89.1FM (University of Ottawa community radio). She is very active in the Black community in Ottawa, and has done a great deal to promote its people, organizations, causes and events. To make it easier for the Black community to stay connected, Sarah created a website called BlackOttawa411 which has become a virtual community “hub” of sorts. In addition to volunteering as a radio and television host and producer, Sarah has emceed and helped organize various community events as well as diplomatic functions. Sarah is also a board member of Black History Ottawa, where she is responsible for public relations and outreach activities. Since 2008, Sarah has also been a member of the United Way/Centraide Ottawa Community Builder Award Recognition team.
Sarah says: “I am thrilled and proud to have been asked to be a 2014 Welcoming Ottawa Week co-chair! This community-building initiative provides an ideal platform for Canada’s capital city to show off one of its most precious resources: its people! What a fabulous way to celebrate the many diverse immigrant experiences and contributions that make Ottawa such a dynamic city!”