Health Promotion Lab

What is the Health Promotion Lab?

The RADIUS Health Promotion Lab aims to centre health-equity while fostering the creation and incubation of equity-based models, ventures, partnerships, and interventions by those from communities disproportionally impacted by health inequities.

Through our current Lab programs including, Reimagine Health and Trampoline — we support individuals and ventures at their various stages of exploration, ideation, and action, through cohort-based, equity-centred learning and mentorship.

What We Mean When We Say:

Health Equity:

What we are working towards by addressing the unfair and avoidable health differences shaped by the social determinants of health that are deeply rooted in systems and institutions.

Social Determinants of Health:

The conditions in which we live in that contribute to one’s vulnerability to preventable chronic diseases and health challenges.

Intersectionality:

A term first coined by Kimberlee Crenshaw- we apply this concept in our work to achieve health equity by centring the lived experiences of impacted communities to understand the health differences among communities and how it’s influenced by the interconnectedness of social identities.

Lab

A collaborative space for focused learning discovery and action, focused on systemic change.

We offer two unique lab programs for social ventures and ideas:

The Reimagine Health Program is a free six-month cohort-based program that supports community members and leaders explore health-equity issues in their communities and build ideas to create positive change  Through Reimagine Health, we support participants to produce innovative and improved initiatives that address the systems that actively influence health disparities. 

We are not currently accepting applications for Reimagine Health. To receive email notifications about Reimagine Health, add yourself to the mailing list.

 

The Trampoline Business Model Validation Program is a two to three-month pre-accelerator for very early-stage ventures or individuals with a health promoting solution. Through Trampoline’s validation program, we test your business model for alignment in three key areas, highlight critical gaps, and give you the confidence you need to move forward.

We are not currently accepting applications for Trampoline. To receive email notifications about Trampoline, add yourself to the mailing list.

The TEAM

Meet the Team Behind the Health Promotion Lab

Ilhan Abdullahi

Program Manager

Ilhan is a Somali-Canadian whose parents’ migration journey brought her to these unceded Coast Salish Lands at a very young age. Stemming from her family’s experience of being racialized newcomers, Ilhan has been passionate in addressing social and health inequities and developed a commitment to social justice. Having spent some time in community activism, youth work and health promotion in the Lower Mainlands of Vancouver, Ilhan then moved to Toronto to pursue her Masters in Public Health and gain a critical intersectional analysis on what promotes vulnerability to health inequities. She has recently returned to BC and is ecstatic to get involved in health equity and community work. When she’s not working, you can find her embarking on solo travels somewhere in the world.

Alia Sunderji

Equity Centred Accelerator Consultant & Entrepreneur-in-Residence Mentor
 
Alia is a social entrepreneur and lecturer at SFU, teaching Sustainable Innovation and Introduction to Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Passionate about the fields of sustainability, poverty alleviation, and impact investing, Alia is the Founder of Luv The Grub, an emerging social enterprise that operates at a number of levels in the food system by capturing produce seconds that would otherwise go to waste. Alia hires newcomer refugees and immigrants through a paid employment training program and produces delicious chutneys and spreads for the local market. In addition, Alia is the Co-Founder of Liv & Lola, a fair trade home decor business that works with artisans in rural areas of Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Thailand where employment opportunities are scarce in an effort to lift them, their families and their communities out of poverty.
 

Halah Zumrawi

Coordinator, Health Promotion Lab

Halah is a graduate student in clinical counselling with a keen interest in the biopsychosocial and spiritual aspects of addiction and recovery. She’s spent the past few years in the biotech startup world as well as working in her communities to lower barriers to epistemologically relevant mental health care. 

Halah is grateful to live on the territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ / sel̓íl̓witulh nations. Halah always makes time to read, cultivate her love of languages and be near the ocean.

Khalid Hashi


Khalid
 is Chief Executive Officer and Founder of OGOW Health, an award-winning tech start-up dedicated to improving health outcomes by harnessing the power of data and technology.

Khalid was inspired to innovate after his first trip to Somalia, where he met his grandmother for the first time and had a firsthand encounter with the condition of healthcare services in the country. Since then, his innovative solution has gone on to win global innovation challenges and is backed by: IDEO, Google, Global Affairs Canada and Gates Health. The OGOW Health platform has been adopted by leading international organizations and Governments to strengthen maternal, newborn and child health interventions. 

In 2021, Khalid was shortlisted as a Semi-Finalist for the Global Citizen Prize: Leadership Award and in 2020 was recognized by Alberta Council for Global Cooperation on their “30 under 30” list featuring 30 exceptional recipients for their inspiring work.

Impact and Stories

The Reimagine Health program team held a reflections session to capture their thoughts and learnings after three years of running the program supporting 62 participants and their initiatives.

Graphic illustration by: Dionne Co (@ocennoid on Instagram)

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CONTACT

Questions About Health Promotion Lab?

If you still have questions about Health Promotion Lab, email Ilhan Abdullahi at iabdullahi@radiussfu.com.

To receive updates about the Health Promotion Lab, add yourself to the mailing list.

Funders & PARTNERS

Making the Health Promotion Lab Possible

Thank you to our funders who have made the Health Promotion Lab possible over the years: Health Sciences Association of British Columbia, RBC Future Launch, Public Health Agency of Canada, and Definity Insurance Foundation.