Staff

Michael Doyle Cluett is the recipient for the 2009 Canadian Red Cross Young Humanitarian Award. Currently, Michael is the coordinating Youth Facilitator for the GPI Youth Stories of Resilience: Youth Leaders for Community Wellbeing program. Michael recently returned from Bhutan where he worked with GPI Atlantic and partner organizations to facilitate a number of youth media projects and also attended the Educating for Gross National Happiness workshop. He has been an active member and frequent facilitator for the GPIAtlantic Youth Program since 2007 when he joined the Youth Engage! Project, during which he facilitated programs such as Move Your World, a 4-day conference for Atlantic Canadian youth on global issues. Michael was one of 26 GPI Atlantic Youth who attended a 2-week program with the 2007 Third International Conference on Gross National Happiness (GNH): World Views Make a Difference. Michael frequently volunteers in addition to his paid facilitation duties and also works with the Atlantic Council for International Cooperation First Voices: Connecting Aboriginal Youth in the North and South program as well as other youth organizations. Michael was also the 2006 President of the Mi’kmaq Students Association at Dalhousie University and worked in his home community of Chapel Island, Nova Scotia at the Potlotek Youth Centre. Michael uses creative expression, film and music to help other youth address issues as diverse as environmental sustainability or sharing and preserving aboriginal heritage, cultures and history around the world.

A Cofounder of the GPIAtlantic Youth Program, Dahlia Colman has been immersed in the principles of genuine progress and gross national happiness since early childhood. Currently, Dahlia is coordinating research for an education partnership in Bhutan and will be facilitating a youth program on genuine progress in France this summer. She served as Director of Media Relations, Bhutan for the Educating for Gross National Happiness international workshop in Thimphu held in December 2009. Dahlia is a contributor to Solutions Journal, an online magazine addressing environmental and social issues. She authored the GPIAtlantic publication (originally written for the Atlantic Council for International Cooperation). Dahlia has volunteered and worked as a paid facilitator with innumerable youth programs for GPIAtlantic and other organizations, including the Bhutan Youth Development Fund, the Sierra Club, and GNH USA. Dahlia attended the Foundation Year program at the University of King’s College and is now a student at Sarah Lawrence College where she is studying economics and art.

The GPIAtlantic Youth Program was developed by Gwendolyn Colman for the Rethinking Development Conference and continues under her direction. The Youth Program became the inspiration for a world-wide youth movement toward creating genuine progress based on the four pillars of Gross National Happiness: environmental conservation; cultural preservation and promotion; sustainable economics; and good governance. This coordinated network of young volunteers spans 18 countries and is a force for youth led positive change. The GPIAtlantic youth program contains: participative youth research projects; educational workshops and camps; and media projects. Previous to her work with GPIAtlantic, Gwen worked as an editor and project manager on several large environmental impact statement and database projects. She has also worked as a small magazine editor and journalist and created workshops for young writers, as well as many other youth programs. She attended the University of Colorado with majors in Journalism and Chinese Languages.

Dr. Ronald Colman is founder and Executive Director of GPIAtlantic. Previously, Dr. Colman taught for 20 years at the university level and was a researcher and speech-writer at the United Nations. He has researched and written many reports on indicators of population health, community wellbeing, natural resource health, and environmental quality. Ron advises governments and communities both in Canada and internationally on indicator work, and regularly speaks on the subject to interested groups.

View video clips of Ron speaking at the Rethinking Development Conference in June 2005.

Nora Didkowsky is the Project Manager for GPIAtlantic’s Youth Leaders for Community Wellbeing Program (www.gpiatlantic.org) and the associated Stories of Resilience camps. Nora has worked with the GPIAtlantic Youth Program since 2007 coordinating programs with an emphasis on international cooperation and understanding among youth. She is also the Project Coordinator for the Negotiating Resilience Research Program at the Resilience Research Centre, Dalhousie University, Canada (www.resilienceresearch.org). Nora obtained a BSc Honours Psychology degree from Acadia University and a Masters of Arts in International Development Studies at Dalhousie University. Her mixed-model research included qualitative interviews with young people, exploring youth resilience within the framework of shifting economic, political and social realities in post-Soviet Russia, as well as the role of youth in forging a space for participation in healthy community development. Nora spent three years as an international researcher and youth programs coordinator at the Center for Research on Culture and Human Development, (St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia, Canada). Following completion of her Master's studies, Nora taught a 3rd year Migration and Development class through the International Development Studies Department at Dalhousie University. She is currently a doctoral student in the Interdisciplinary PhD Program at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia. Her doctoral research, which is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Foundation through the Atlantic RURAL Centre, will investigate the pathways to resilience for youth in transition coping with the effects of community restructuring in rural Atlantic Canada.

Karen Hayward has been a researcher with GPIAtlantic since 2000. She has worked on a number of research reports on in the area of population health, and in 2004 was the lead author of GPIAtlantic's The Costs and Benefits of Gaming report. Karen has a background in health and social work, and as a writer and editor of a number of publications.

Linda Pannozzo has a background in environmental science, teaching and journalism. She has been a freelance journalist for nearly 10 years and between 1998 and 2001 was Executive Director of the student-run organization Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group (NSPIRG) at Dalhousie University. Linda is a researcher with GPIAtlantic, and has authored a number of our reports, including reports on forestry and work hours. Her current research is focused on education.