Shauna Sylvester & Veronika Bylicki on Mentorship, Dialogue & Representing Lived Experience

Check out Shauna Sylvester’s profile on LinkedIn. Don’t be shy — she invited all Vancouverites to connect with her on the well-behaved social network for the 2018 Vancouver civic election.

It was one of a few memorable tactics Sylvester deployed during the endless campaign. Like having policy platforms, and speaking authentically about topics with which she had direct experience. Something definitely worked, because her independent run captured 20% of the vote in the mayoralty race, for third place.

The LinkedIn thing, by the way, is no joke. Because only by viewing it can you understand some of the breadth and depth of her leadership experience, over 40 years with organizations which literally make the world a better place, in how they operate or what they do (and often both).

To give Veronika Bylicki any less space and attention seems criminal, and yet it’s simply impossible to compete when, by comparison, you’re only a decade out of high school.

Bylicki has been impacting the world in a serious way for only one-fourth as long as her fellow alumnus of St. Patrick Regional Secondary School (Main & 10th). That said, City Hive is no small thing. The organization, which Bylicki co-founded, helps develop youth participants and leaders in public policy and civic processes, and works with government to ensure youth voices, needs and experience inform the shape of Vancouver’s future.

Sounds like the kind of organization Sylvester would aspire to be part of.

In a discussion that’s equal parts refreshingly positive, entertaining, and “where is this going”, Bylicki and Sylvester grapple with Gord on such topics as millennial media consumption, fake news in the 2018 campaign, why intersectional representation always matters, and what leadership looks like in a climate crisis.