Hello! My name is Alanna, I'm a 2024 Laidlaw Scholar and a final year BSc (Hons) Psychology student from the University of Toronto. I am a youth mental health advocate and the CEO and Founder of non-profit organization HOPE (Helping Our Planet Earth) and Board Member of registered charity Narrative 4.  My work at HOPE focuses on making mental health support accessible to youth internationally through mental health education, empathy and youth leadership empowerment. We are excitedly working on digital mental health tech - more on this soon! I love connecting with others and hearing about what you're passionate about, so do reach out and chat anytime! 

Laidlaw Scholar Alumni (Durham University Cohort 6, 2022-24) Current Endeavours: I am studying MSc Environmental Economics and Climate Change at the LSE for 2024-25. From September 2025, I will be starting a PhD in Environmental Economics at the University of Basel, Switzerland. --- My time as a Laidlaw Scholar: I graduated with First Class Honours in BA Economics from Durham University. My foremost interests are Development Economics and Environmental Economics. This is reflected in my research project which explored Demographic Economics, titled "The Shifting Distribution of the Global Population in the Twenty-First Century: an Econometric Analysis of the Projected Fortunes of Nigeria and Japan, with Policy Recommendations for Sustainable Development". I have experience working in economic consulting, specialising in competition economics, and am also a Zumba instructor. During my time on the Laidlaw Programme I have also served as a Laidlaw Schools Trust Mentor for Excelsior Academy in Newcastle. In 2023, I completed a six-week international ‘Leadership in Action’ project in partnership with Think Pacific for my Laidlaw Scholarship. For this, I participated in a multi-faceted programme, comprising the building of a health centre, collaborations with Diabetes Fiji and Youth Champs 4 Mental Health, and a Fijian Culture Course. The project ended with a Think Tank where we planned how we would sustain progress. In my sub-group’s case, we are working on a new project to build a multi-purpose building to act as a kindergarten and evacuation centre, for which we are currently fundraising. We have had multiple meetings with the Laidlaw Foundation CEO and the Laidlaw Schools Trust, and we are presenting at the Conversations Conference in Dublin in October 2023. Our project took place in Vunimaqo and Waisava, Dreketi Settlement, Nalawa district, Ra province, Vita Levu island, Fiji. I attended the Impact 2022 conference at the LSE and (virtually, after flight cancellations) the Conversations 2023 conference at Trinity College Dublin.

Thanks to the International Scholar Award, I'm an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto Mississauga, completing an Honors Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Communication, Culture, Information & Technology (CCIT) and Professional Writing and Communication (PWC). I aspire to be a professional writer and publish several writing pieces in different fields, including creative non-fiction narratives, academic research papers, and journalistic articles. Happy to connect with any Scholars! 

I'm a final year psychology MSci student specialising in developmental disorders. My project focuses around the development attention in infants and if certain maternal strategies scaffold joint attention and how this varies cross culturally in the UK and Uganda. I'm hoping to pursue a PhD in the future!