Current Directors, Officers and Program Volunteers

Ravinder Safaya - Chairperson

Ravinder Safaya is a founder-director and nationally recognized youth leadership advocate with nearly three decades of experience mentoring youth through organizations such as the Steps Together Foundation and the Youth Leadership Society of BC, focusing on experiential learning in leadership, public speaking, and community service. He currently serves as a Director with the BC Association of Student Activity Advisors and holds advanced leadership credentials through the Canadian Student Leadership Association, where he also previously served as a Director, reflecting his ongoing impact in youth development at both provincial and national levels.

In addition to his youth leadership work, he is a self-employed international trade professional with over 40 years of experience, supported by Canada’s Trade Accelerator Program certification, an engineering background, an MBA, and recognition as a 2020 Community Champion by MP Ron McKinnon.

Achla Safaya - Vice-Chairperson & Treasurer

Achla Safaya, founder-director, has been involved in youth activities along with her husband. She is a former Volunteer of the Year Award recipient from the Save the Bay organization, RI, USA. She also is a founder director of the registered Charity, Steps Together Foundation. Achla is a self-employed businesswoman in the field of early childhood education. She holds a Ph.D. degree in Zoology, Diploma in Ecotoxicology, and Early Childhood Education (ECE) certification. She is a recipient of 2019’s Women Influencer Award, Exceptional Educator, from Women’s Collaborative Hub, British Columbia Canada. 

Karn Safaya - Director-at-Large

Karn Safaya, who is the founder director, has actively participated in youth organizations. In addition to his participation in the BC Youth Parliament, he is a recipient of the Gold Level Duke of Edinburgh Award, Queen's Venturer Award, and the Chief Scout's Award. As Director-at-Large, Karn offers guidance and direction to YLSBC on youth matters. Karn is a resident doctor at a Children’s Hospital (CHEO) in Ottawa.

Capt. Rajesh Gopinathan - Board of Director

Capt. Rajesh Gopinathan is a professional mariner with over 22 years of sailing experience on different types of ships, navigating them across the oceans. He migrated to Vancouver in 2014 and since then has been working with Seaspan Ship Management, Vancouver. In his current role as Director, Business Transformation he works closely with the Executive leadership team in improving the processes and procedures onboard the ships and ashore to achieve Operational Excellence. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Nautical Science from Mumbai University and in 2017 completed the Diploma in Maritime Management and Leadership with Merit and Commendation for excellent standard from Lloyds Maritime Academy and North Kent College. In 2017 the Chartered Management Institute, UK conferred the prestigious Chartered Manager accreditation to Capt. Gopinathan. He is associated with YLSBC as a parent volunteer from 2015 onwards and Youth Leadership Program from 2019 onwards as he enjoys working with the youth. He considers working with the young leaders as a stress relief for himself and a recharging option apart from guiding the youth through various leadership challenges and opportunities. 

Nitin Sinha - Board of Director

After working as Senior Technology and Project/Program Management Consultant in North America and UK for more than fifteen years, Nitin moved to Vancouver in 2010 in a Management Consulting role at Deloitte Canada. Nitin worked as ICBC managing a large portfolio of projects and Transformation Program from 2012 and returned back to the consulting world as an independent consultant/contractor in 2018. Nitin has expertise in Business Intelligence and Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Quality and Risk Management and IT System Implementations. Nitin is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP), Canadian Risk Manager (CRM) and MBA from the Stern School of Business, New York University. Nitin was a guest speaker at the Vancouver Project Management Institute (PMI) Conference in 2017 and actively participates in multiple community events in greater Vancouver area. He wants to help local clients who are facing challenges in channeling data into business intelligence and finding actional-able information from this data by using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. 

Priyanka Kaul - Team Leader (Service Projects)

Priyanka completed her studies in Geography with four concentrations; Physical Geography, Environmental Science, GIS, and Urban Planning & Development from the University of the Fraser Valley. She has completed her Bharatanatya Arangetram (graduation) from Thillai Kalalayam Dance Academy and also has a third-degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do from Grand Master Lee’s Tae Kwon Do School. She is also extremely passionate about music, acting, creative designing, outdoor activities, technology, and innovation. She is an avid traveler and thoroughly enjoys learning about different cultures, languages, lifestyles, food, history and meeting people from around the world. She did an international internship under the Institute of Human Settlement Studies (IHSS) department at Ardhi University in Tanzania, Africa which was funded by Queen Elizabeth Scholars. The internship focused on Food Security and Food Systems where she researched the impact of Urban Farming on food security, gender roles in the workforce, gender security and climate change. She started volunteering for community service at the age of 12 and all through her university years. She has experience in events planning through the use of tactical urbanism. Since last year, she has been volunteering with the YLSBC as the project manager and team leader for community projects YLSBC undertakes. Having taken Indigenous Studies courses in university, she is inspired to learn more about Canada's indigenous people and finds opportunities to do so.  Through YLSBC service projects, she has found the opportunity to interact with Indigenous communities in BC and she is very passionate about serving and empowering these communities.

Neor Tiku - Past Team Leader (Youth Leadership Challenge)

Neor Tiku was a 4th-year Political Science student currently studying at the University of British Columbia, and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Public Policy at the University of Oxford. He has completed Duke of Edinburgh’s Award program and graduated from YLSBC’s Leadership Program. He is an alumnus of the Canadian Student Leadership Association, having attended a national leadership conference in Halifax in 2015. Neor has exemplified his leadership skills through the community work he does regularly. He founded Connect Vancouver Foundation, which for the past five years has helped connect Vancouver's marginalized with free phones and phone service connecting them with a lifeline to safety, harm-reduction and upward mobility out of the cycle of poverty. Neor believes that grassroots, youth-led movements are testaments to the power of youth-led change we need to secure a better future. Neor is a strong advocate for increasing youth engagement in the community, and hence, he is a driving force behind YLSBC’s Youth Leadership Challenge Program.

Chandhana Nambiar - Former Team Leader (Media and Publicity)

Chandhana has always aspired to elevate her leadership skills, and YLSBC provided her with the opportunity to do so. She has participated in the Youth Leadership Program and completed her Bronze certification for The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. Through her experience at YLSBC, she was greatly inspired to make a change in her community. She has accomplished this by volunteering at her nearby community center and tutoring young kids at her piano academy. She has also led a community bottle drive to raise money to build wells in Kenya, while helping young girls receive their rightful education. Using the skills she learnt from the leadership program, she is an active member in her community and school. She is currently a student at the University of British Columbia and is a part of the UBC Concrete Toboggan program.

Recently, Hrishitha Nair has joined the media and publicity team of our programs and events under the guidance of Chandhana, Ravi and Priyanka. She is a grade 9 student at Pitt Meadows Secondary School.

Ronita Naicker - Former Community Service Coordinator

Ronita was a parent volunteer who enjoyed working with children and youth.  Throughout the years, she has served on several committees for different organizations.  Her favourite quote is from Mahatma Gandhi: "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."  This is the reason why she chose to take the position of Service Coordinator.  Her goal is to help youth recognize, through being involved in service opportunities, that in order to build leadership skills,s they need to realize that service to others is also a quality of a leader. Her educational background is that of a Professional Bookkeeper.

She was assisted by a parent volunteer, Mr.Jamsher Karwal.

Acknowledgement

We are pleased to acknowledge following youth and parents who have contributed immensely to our growth and success with programs:

Founding Youth:

Keisha Mistry, Nikita Menon

The YLSBC logo was primarily designed by Keisha Mistry with input from founding members.

Founding Parents (former directors):

Deepti Rajeev, Jaymala Mistry

Current Program Youth Leaders and Coaches

We acknowledge the immense contribution of the follow youth in development and delivering our programs as below:

Public Speaking Program (Current Coaches)

Ananya Govindarajapuram, Aryan Bamzai, Keisha Mistry, Nandita Menon, Nitin Sinha (Director), Raag Nair and Sadhri Kumar

Public Speaking Program (Former Coach)

Ekam Karwal, Tony Sun

Public Speaking Short Program (Newest Coaches)

Abhaya Govindarajapuram and Hrishitha Nair

JASS Program (Current Coaches)

Aryan Kaul, Kaly Higano, Raag Nair

JASS Program (Former Coaches)

Maanasi Venkatramani and Balasomu Chettiar

Youth Leadership Program (Current Coaches)

Abhinav Nair, Anisha Pfaender, Maaya Peshin, Neor Tiku, Raag Nair, Cpt. Rajesh Nair (Director) and Simren Ahuja

Youth Leadership Short Program (Newest Program)

Raag Nair and Simren Ahuja

Acknowledgement

We are pleased to acknowledge following youth and parents who have contributed immensely to the growth and success of the Programs as coaches and leaders

Youth Leaders:

Keerthana Kumar and Nikita Menon

Youth Media Team:

Chandhana Nambiar, Hrishitha Nair, Nishi Parikh, Priyanka Kaul, Saagar Arya and Siddharth Palatt

Parent Coaches:

Ami Goshalia, Deepti Rajeev, Jaymala Mistry, Seema Nair,Tejas Goshalia,
Vibha Budshah and Jamsher Karwal

Youth and Parent Volunteers   

YLSBC is a vibrant community supported by youth and parents alike. Volunteers are at the heart of the organization and contribute, suggest, design, implement, monitor, coach, mentor, lead at all levels of these dynamic programs. We acknowledge each and every youth member and parent volunteers of YLSBC who are contributing towards our success in many ways too difficult to articulate. You have our gratitude from the bottom of our hearts!