Isha

“I try to start every day like it is full of promise and new. I try hard to look for positivity and love in every situation but admit it’s sometimes challenging- but I know my gut always wants me to start from a place of positivity.”

Isha is 45 and a human rights lawyer, an avid volunteer, and a mother of three girls living in Winnipeg, MB. She is the Executive Director and senior counsel with The Manitoba Human Rights Commission, an independent agency of the Government of Manitoba.  She also volunteers a lot in her community and is currently the incoming Chairperson of United Way Winnipeg. She told me she loves being a part of “United Way Winnipeg because it allows [her] to connect to community organizations doing work to improve the lives of others in [her] city.” When I asked Isha what her proudest accomplishment is she told me, “I feel privileged to be able to advocate for and work with people who have experienced discrimination based on their sex, ancestry, disability, or gender identity for example. I feel honoured when they trust me to be their voice and tell their story. I feel immensely proud when I can be part of remedying some wrong that has been done to them or better yet, when I have been part of changing the way others think about them or the systems that may work against them.” What’s most important to Isha is that “we acknowledge that every person is born with worth and dignity. Ensuring that people are treated with equality has always been something that drives me. It seems that there is an undercurrent of prejudice running amongst the educated and seemingly enlightened, and it is almost more dangerous than the hate being spewed by the fearful and ignorant- because it’s not being called out.  It is important to me that we do something about it.”