Larissa is a restorative circle keeper, published Indigenous and anti-racism researcher, award-winning ribbon skirt artist, and proudly passes on Métis and Jamaican ancestry to her daughter, Zyra. She is the Founder of Future Ancestors Services, a youth-led professional services social enterprise that advances equity and climate justice through lenses of ancestral accountability and anti-racism.

 

Under Larissa's leadership, the organization has raised over $20K in donations for anti-racist and climate justice initiatives since April 2020. Larissa and her team seek to increase their clients' capacity to honour people and planet through their minds, work, and spaces, and do so while leveraging decolonized and Indigenized approaches to "doing business."
 

Larissa graduated from York University with a Bachelor of Arts in International Development and Communication Studies in June 2018, Summa Cum Laude, with two-year-old Zyra on her hip. After experiences such as starting a library in Accra, Ghana, studying international law and volunteering in Istanbul, Turkey, and representing her university at several global United Nations events, Larissa redirected her efforts to home. She led several anti-racism and Indigenous research initiatives at the university, and shortly after brought this experience to Ontario’s Ministry of Energy and Ontario’s Anti-Racism Directorate as a policy advisor; the 2018 G7 as an expert advisor and youth delegate; and many of her related volunteer roles. Larissa's experience has led to her specializations in raced-based data collection, Indigenous and anti-racism research, accessibility, restorative circle keeping, restorative practice and conflict resolution, climate justice, and public policy.

 

Through programs such as the CohortX Climate Justice, the Action Canada, and the Youth Climate Lab FutureXChange fellowships, and now the FIreweed Fellowship, Larissa continues her learning of Northern Indigenous climate knowledge, climate policy, anti-racism opportunities in environmentalism, and doing business with traditional and decolonized approaches.