Our Story

VOICES Canada seed is planted

On March 8 2006, Voices of the Voiceless International Health Organization, the precursor to the VOICES Global Collective was registered as a Not Profit in Ontario, Canada. Conceived as an international development organization, its main goal was to develop and promote public health in the global south. With the support of Ms. Eileen Quarshie, and Ms. Charmaine Pattinson, on the founding board, the organization's first project was to support the public health research project on the Childhood Abuse as a Public Health issue in Accra, Ghana.

Work in Ghana begins..

In May 2006, Ahmeda Mansaray-Richardson, the founder and current Global Executive Director was inspired by the research supported by the organization, to incorporate a stand-alone organization in Ghana that would work with VOICES Canada to recognize, encourage and enhance the capacity of young people.

The founding team Ms. Owusu-Achaw, a young Ghanaian, Ms. Kelly, a Canadian International Development Agency intern, as well as a dedicated Board of Directors, Mr. Nylander, Ms. Akuffo-Amoabeng, Ms. Nuno-Mansaray, and Mr. Rich, successfully incorporated the NGO and began the work it was conceived to do.

VOICES Sierra Leone

An April 2017 visit by VOICES Founder Ahmeda Mansaray-Richardson, was the first step towards the VOICES Sierra Leone dream coming to reality. After many conversations with young adult survivors of the civil war, it became abundantly clear that there was a major gap in services and program that specifically targeted young people who had not successfully graduated from High School. In partnership with the Rasoul Foundation, VOICES Global is in plans to begin a project with the Easton street community to bring the Entrepreneurship institute and Community Action Teams programs to Freetown.

2025 Vision and Strategic goals

Over the next 6 years (2019-2025), The VOICES Global Collective is strategically aiming to achieve the following targets:

  • Seek, develop and nurture flexible and productive partnerships with a minimum of 5 interested organizations, businesses or social innovative projects in re-imagining and re-mapping our model for their own community health initiatives.

  • Build out Fellowship, Internship and Incubator capacity to host 20 young people simultaneously annually.

  • Fund and Launch our VOICES Youth Research Institute

  • Expand our Scholarship ability to include a funding capacity of up to $100,000 a year by 2025.

  • Launch our annual global social justice hackathon

  • Build our social enterprise capabilities into thriving social entrepreneurship businesses with the capability of supporting a minimum of 30% of our scholarship fund.