Hannah Alper (born ) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

ger, and

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

who was active in those fields before her teens.

Personal life

Jewish-Canadian Canadian citizens who follow Judaism as their religion and/or are Jewish ethnic divisions, ethnically Jewish are a part of the greater Jewish diaspora and form the third largest Jewish community in the world, exceeded only by those Israeli Jew ...

, Hannah Alper was born in to Candace and Eric Alper. In 2013, her mother worked "helping children in their community through social programs and summer camps and music therapy" and her father worked for eOne Music Canada while founding a charity to buy

hearing aid A hearing aid is a device designed to improve hearing by making sound audible to a person with hearing loss. Hearing aids are classified as medical devices in most countries, and regulated by the respective regulations. Small audio amplifiers su ...

s for children in need. In 2020 the family was living in the

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

suburb of

Richmond Hill, Ontario Richmond Hill (Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population: 202,022) is a city in south-central Regional Municipality of York, York Region, Ontario, Canada. Part of the Greater Toronto Area, it is the York Region's third most populous municipality and th ...

Activism

In July 2012, Alper launched her

—''Call Me Hannah''—where she spoke about causes important to her:

animal welfare Animal welfare is the well-being of non-human animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures such as longevity ...

habitat destruction Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

, and the

natural environment The natural environment or natural world encompasses all life, living and non-living things occurring nature, naturally, meaning in this case not Artificiality, artificial. The term is most often applied to the Earth or some parts of Earth. Th ...

; within the year, her blog had received 100,000 page-views. By 2020 she had expanded her advocacy to anti-

bullying Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception (by the bully or by others) of an imba ...

and "kindraising", what she described as "changing our communities and the world through kindness." At the same time, her blog had "a huge following", accumulated 40000

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

followers, 13000

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

followers, and earned her an interview by

George Stroumboulopoulos George Mark Paul Stroumboulopoulos (; Greek: Γεώργιος Μάρκος Παύλος Στρουμπουλόπουλος; born August 16, 1972) is a Canadian media personality. He is one of Canada's most popular broadcasters and best known as fo ...

. Alper has given a motivational speech for ME to WE, served as an ambassador for

Free the Children WE Charity (french: Organisme UNIS), formerly known as Free the Children (French: ''Enfants Entraide''), is an international development charity and youth empowerment movement founded in 1995 by human rights advocates Marc and Craig Kielburger. ...

, spoken at the

World Wildlife Fund The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wo ...

's Toronto event for Earth Hour, and raised (in

pennies A penny is a coin ( pennies) or a unit of currency (pl. pence) in various countries. Borrowed from the Carolingian denarius (hence its former abbreviation d.), it is usually the smallest denomination within a currency system. Presently, it is th ...

) from schoolchildren for Free the Children. Her 2014

TEDx TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

talk, "How to find your spark", was viewed over 2400 times in less than one week. Nominated by

Lilly Singh Lilly Saini Singh (born September 26, 1988) is a Canadian YouTuber. Singh began making YouTube videos in 2010. She originally appeared under the pseudonym Superwoman (stylized IISuperwomanII), her YouTube username until 2019. In 2016, she was in ...

in 2017, Alper was the only teenager of ''

Bloomberg Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'' 19 people to watch in 2018. By mid-2020, she had given "more than 400 speeches", and was elected co-president of the

B'nai B'rith Youth Organization BBYO (formerly ''B'nai B'rith Youth Organization Inc.'') is a Jewish teen movement, organized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and headquartered in Washington, D.C. The organization is intended to build the identity of Jewish teens and offer ...

's Lake Ontario Region chapter.

Journalism

As a teen journalist, Alper has written for ''

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

'' and interviewed

Malala Yousafzai Malala Yousafzai ( ur, , , pronunciation: ; born 12 July 1997), is a Pakistani female education activist and the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Awarded when she was 17, she is the world's youngest Nobel Prize laureate, and the second Pak ...

Craig Kielburger Craig Kielburger (born December 17, 1982) is a Canadian human rights activist and social entrepreneur. He is the co-founder, with his brother Marc Kielburger, of the WE Charity, as well as We Day and the independent, social enterprise Me to ...

Spencer West Spencer West (born January 7, 1981) is an American motivational speaker and disability advocate. West became an amputee after being born with sacral agenesis. He speaks about overcoming adversity and uses social media to advocate for the disabil ...

Jian Ghomeshi Jian Ghomeshi (born June 9, 1967) is a British-born Persian-Canadian broadcaster, writer, musician, producer and former CBC personality. From 1990 to 2000, he was a vocalist and drummer in the Thornhill-based folk-pop band Moxy Früvous. In ...

and

Severn Cullis-Suzuki Severn Cullis-Suzuki (born 30 November 1979) is a Canadian environmental activist and writer. She has spoken around the world about environmental issues, urging listeners to define their values, act with the future in mind, and take individual r ...

. In 2013, Alper was the official blogger for the

Juno Award The Juno Awards, more popularly known as the JUNOS, are awards presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of ...

s. Released on 1 November 2017, Alper's first book—''Momentus: Small Acts, Big Change''— is a collection of interviews with 19 of her role models (including Singh, Yousafzai, and

Lily Collins Lily Jane Collins (born 18 March 1989) is a British and American actress and model who is known for her work in several films, including ''Stuck in Love'' (2012), ''The English Teacher'' (2013), and '' Love, Rosie'' (2014), comedy ''Rules Do ...

), hoping to empower youth to take action and make the changes they want to see in the world. 2020 saw Alper feature in the

pilot episode A television pilot (also known as a pilot or a pilot episode and sometimes marketed as a tele-movie), in United States television, is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell a show to a television network or other distri ...

of '' CitizenKids: Earth Comes First'', a TV series adapted from the

Kids Can Press Kids Can Press is a Canadian-owned publisher of children's books, with a catalog near 1000 picture books and 500 e-books, non-fiction and fiction titles for toddlers to young adults. The Kids Can Press list includes characters such as Franklin ...

series of ''CitizenKid'' books; she, Cooper Price, Charlene Rocha, and series star Sophia Mathur "set out to tackle climate change issues from the perspective of today’s youth."

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Alper, Hannah 2000s births 21st-century Canadian Jews 21st-century Canadian journalists 21st-century Canadian non-fiction writers activists from Toronto Canadian bloggers Canadian climate activists Canadian child activists Canadian women activists Canadian women bloggers Canadian women journalists environmental bloggers environmental journalists Jewish Canadian activists Jewish Canadian journalists journalists from Toronto living people people from Richmond Hill, Ontario youth climate activists writers from Toronto

Personal life

Activism

Journalism

References

Further reading

External links