Learning Series
The Vancouver Pride Queer Mental Health Panel
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The Learning Series is a multidisciplinary initiative that strives to create a platform that uplifts, inspires, and reconnects individuals of the 2SLGBTQIA+ Community. It is an in-depth look at stories from equity-deserving groups that will showcase their Queer lived experience with Mental Health through video content and an online discussion. Our panel was moderated by Jaye Simpson, and the panel itself consisted of three speakers: Shetin Adams, Joey Laguio, and Jag Nagra. With this initiative, we hope to provide support, highlight resources, and establish lasting change within our communities.
Our Panel
Siobhan Barker (sha-von/Sio/they/she) (hear names) is of a stolen people living in solidarity Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, Musqueam, Hwlitsum, Katzie, Kwantlen, Kwikwetlem, Matsqui, Qayqayt, Semiahmoo, Tsawwassen, and Stó:lō Nations.
Sio is a published, nationally recognized, bilingual, equity and accessibility consultant also sought as a spokesperson, storyteller, and community organizer. Sio advocates recognizing the impact of intersectionalities in moving toward equity, decolonizing practices, and collective liberation. As a non-binary person, of mixed ancestry, living with disability, they recognize and value the intersection of identities that inform disability justice, artistic practice, change-making, and honouring ancestral teachings.
Shetin Adams is a Calgary-born Vancouver-based professional in the Executive Search space with a passion for community organizing and grassroots activism. A creative at heart, she enjoys expressing her love for the world and the communities she belongs to through various mediums, mainly writing, animation, and film. Shetin is a member of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council at Caldwell, and co-leads a DEI learning series called "Caldwell Learns". She holds a Bachelor's Degree in International Relations with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa from the University of Calgary and has held the role of Youth Coordinator with the Ghanaian-Canadian Association of Calgary for five years. Her work can be found on LinkTree and on LinkedIn.
Jag Nagra is a queer South Asian visual artist working and raising a family with her wife on the traditional and unceded territory of the Katzie First Nation. She is passionate about community development and ending the stigma against LGBTQ+ people within the South Asian community. Jag focuses her art practice on South Asian concepts that depict a sense of confidence and fearlessness—she unapologetically celebrates darker skin tones and South Asian garments and motifs.
She is currently serving as the Creative Director of Vancouver’s Punjabi Market Collective. Through art, she has found her voice and a new appreciation for her culture and identity.
Joey Laguio (he/him) currently works for a startup designing content management technology for Canadian municipalities and also consults for non-profits. He loves music and sings regularly with the vocal group he co-founded, the Wings Vocal Collective. In a past life, he was an interdisciplinary educator and taught voice, math/science, and video game design to youth all over the Lower Mainland. In his spare time, he enjoys playing video games and eating lots of food with his loving partner, Matthew.
As someone who has struggled with severe Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) for most of his life, he is passionate about increasing access to mental health resources and raising awareness about mental health in general. He likes to get involved with mental health initiatives whenever he can - in the past, he helped to design the MindShift CBT app, a free evidence-based anxiety resource, which now has 800,000+ downloads worldwide.
Our Moderator
jaye simpson (she/they) is an Oji-Cree Saulteaux Indigiqueer from the Sapotaweyak Cree Nation. simpson is a writer, advocate and activist sharing their knowledge and lived experiences in hope of creating utopia.
she is published in several magazines including Poetry Is Dead, This Magazine, PRISM international, SAD Magazine: Green, GUTS Magazine, SubTerrain, Grain and Room. They are in four anthologies: Hustling Verse (2019), Love After the End (2020), The Care We Dream Of (2021), and Queer Little Nightmares (2022). Their first poetry collection, it was never going to be okay (Nightwood Ed.) was shortlisted for the 2021 ReLit Award and a 2021 Dayne Ogilvie Prize Finalist while also winning the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Published Poetry in English.
she is a displaced Indigenous person resisting, ruminating and residing on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-waututh), and sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) First Nations territories, colonially known as Vancouver.