VISION

The Canadian Centre on Statelessness envisions a society in which a sense of existence and belonging of all people, however they define themselves, is reciprocally recognized and protected.

MISSION

The Canadian Centre on Statelessness exists to defend and promote the well-being of persons with lived experiences of statelessness, in particular those within the Canadian context, through:

RESEARCH

We co-generate and foster reciprocal exchanges of knowledge created by lived experiences of statelessness, participatory research, and policy analysis.

COMMUNITY

We work together as stateless persons and allies in a community that practices and cultivates respect for the rights, choices, and belonging of persons with experiences of statelessness.

ADVOCACY

We amplify emancipatory knowledges and action, through intersectional allyship, for the purpose of influencing legislative, policy and social change.

Board of Directors

**Our governance board is recruiting! Click here to see the call to join our Board of Directors for the 2022-2024 term.**

DAWA BHUTI
Dawa is a policy advisor with the federal government. She has lived experience of being a stateless person and the issue of statelessness, especially childhood statelessness, is close to her heart. She has a Master of Arts in Asia Pacific Policy Studies from the University of British Columbia.


JOCELYN KANE 
Jocelyn is the founder of CCS and is a PhD candidate in Political Studies
at the University of Ottawa where she researches voluntary statelessness. 

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ANAM RASHID
As a development practitioner, Anam is particularly interested in understanding how displacement and forced migration impacts the livelihoods of diverse groups of individuals around the world. Having worked and volunteered with organizations that work with refugees and newcomers in Toronto,  Anam understands the importance of providing meaningful support and resources to refugee girls who are often victims of violence. Anam’s goal is to support refugee girls around the world by providing meaningful and sustainable resources for their livelihoods and she hopes to drive this work forward at CCS. 



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Executive Director

YURIKO COWPER-SMITH
(on leave until Oct 2022)
Yuriko has strong experience in refugee, statelessness, and activism in Canada and beyond. As an emerging scholar in political science, Yuriko bridges theory and practice as she is skilled in ground-level, community-based research. Bringing together academic and practical research speaks directly to CCS’ mandate of mobilising knowledge on statelessness to multiple stakeholders and audiences.