About Anemochory

Anna-Liza Badaloo (she/her) is a speaker, workshop leader, facilitator, and decolonial consultant working at the intersection of health, environment, and social justice. Her lived experience as a queer, Indo-Caribbean, neurodivergent woman who is the first person in her family to be born in so-called Canada brings a valuable intersectional perspective to her work. She is a descendant of Indian indentured servants, who were taken across the kala pani (dark waters) from Northern India to Trinidad & Tobago (among other places) by the colonial British Empire.

Viewing organizational justice and belonging through the lens of empathy, her decolonized, intersectional approach helps organizations identify how systemic discriminatory structures are embedded into their ways of working, and co-designs strategies to raise awareness and dismantle barriers. Committed to amplifying diverse voices, her work uncovers how colonial, capitalist, heteronormative, and ableist systems harm equity-denied communities.

We envision a world in which empathy and kindness are leveraged to create inclusive workplace cultures where no one is left behind.

Our Mission

We help organizations uncover and confront colonial systems to foster inclusive workplaces where everyone feels a sense of belonging. Working at the intersection of health, environment, and social justice, we amplify the perspectives of equity-denied communities and explore how to dismantle colonial ways of working.

Why Anemochory?

anemo- (“wind”) +‎ -chory (“seed dispersal”)

Anemochory is the dispersal of plant seeds or spores by the wind. Our logo features dandelion seeds in motion, representing their resilience, ability to weather uncertainty, and willingness to break new ground wherever the wind takes them.

Our Guiding Values

Empathy

Seeing things from a different perspective is the foundation of co-creating meaningful organizational change.

Psychological Safety

True organizational change cannot occur unless all stakeholders feel safe to be their true selves.

Intersectional Lens

Our intersecting identities inform how we experience privilege and oppression.

Nothing About Us Without Us

We directly engage impacted communities in co-creating inclusive solutions.

Anti-Urgency

Countering urgency in white supremacy culture with a reflective approach that builds relationships at the speed of trust.

Our Approach

We’re not your typical HR consultants. We don’t think of humans as resources to be extracted and depleted. We see workers as their full human selves, with all the lived experiences, privileges, oppressions, and identity intersections that make us who we are. And in the age of AI, rediscovering our shared humanity is absolutely essential.

We’re not interested in delivering “one and done” sessions. We focus on building strong relationships with clients founded on a basis of trust and relational accountability. This approach allows us to understand how the organization actually operates (as opposed to how people think it operates), identify areas for reflection, empathy, and healing, and support leaders and people from equity-denied communities to make keystone changes to organizational culture.

We collaborate with a wide range of partners to bring the right expertise to each project. We prioritize working with collaborators from equity-denied communities who share our values, including people who are Black or racialized, Indigenous, people with disabilities, members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, female or gender-diverse, and neurodivergent.

My Journey

The 1980s AIDS epidemic. Bhopal chemical plant explosion (1984). Discovery of the ozone layer hole (1985). Chernobyl nuclear meltdown (1986). Exxon Valdez oil spill (1989). The murder of 14 women at the École Polytechnique de Montréal (1989). Oka crisis (1990).

These incidents made a big impression on my childhood self, inspiring me to shine a light on injustice and work to change hearts and minds from a young age.

My parents moved to Canada from Trinidad and Tobago in the 1970s. Nearly all the major colonizers had their turn in Trinidad, which is why most of us Trinis have a diverse racial, cultural, and spiritual background. My heritage includes Indian, Black, and Spanish. With my mother’s side being Catholic and my father’s side being Hindu, I grew up integrating both traditions.

Thanks to my mother’s job at a major airline, I had the privilege of traveling extensively in my childhood and experiencing how other cultures lived. By the time I finished high school, I had learned that cultural beliefs and norms are ultimately what shape individual actions (or inactions). I spent two years studying Anthropology with a minor in Environmental Studies before deciding to take a break from academics.

For the next decade, I worked in the corporate sector, at vintage clothing shops, and housing coops. I studied Western Herbal Medicine and volunteered as a youth academic tutor and environmental arts facilitator. That’s when I decided that I needed to revisit my education. I went back to school and completed my degree in Environmental Policy and Resource Management at York University.

After spending four years learning how the government can manipulate policy and community consultations to push through harmful environmental legislation, I decided to work in the environmental non-profit sector. After spending years with organizations like LEAF (Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests) and the Toronto Botanical Garden in environmental education, advocacy, and community development, I moved to the health non-profit sector.

I spent seven years at the Ontario Association for Naturopathic Doctors (OAND) doing clinical education, and as Editor of their Pulse magazine. I engaged in Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) initiatives, campaigns, and education programs to increase culturally competent care for patients while addressing racism within the sector, including supporting the formation of NEST (Naturopathic Doctors for Environmental and Social Trust) and NDDR (Naturopathic Doctors Dismantling Racism).

I engaged in both internal and external Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (JEDIB) initiatives, campaigns, and education programs to increase culturally competent care for patients while addressing racism and discrimination within the naturopathic community.

And then the pandemic hit. As I listened to news coverage about the death of George Floyd (and others), rising health equity and access issues, higher infection rates in equity-deserving communities, and the second pandemic of loneliness, I realized that the world was finally ready for my message: health, environment, and social justice issues are merely threads of the same fabric. Unravel one, and it’s only a matter of time before the whole fabric starts to fray.

I obtained a Certificate in Strategic Copywriting from the University of Toronto and founded my first business (Daylighting Copywriting) in June 2020. Now, I’m living my best life as the Founder of Anemochory Consulting, dividing my time between organizational consulting that helps uncover how colonization shows up in ways of being, doing, and working, and communications that amplify the voices of equity-denied communities.

It’s time to co-create a world that centres empathy and intersectional justice so that we can all be our best selves. Who’s with me?

From Our Clients

“Anna-Liza Badaloo has made outstanding contributions to the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities and Community Health (ENRICH) Project as a strong advocate for environmental and social justice. Anna-Liza’s knowledge on the intersections of health, environment and social justice, her extensive experience working alongside communities to dismantle oppressive systems, and the unwavering kindness and positivity she extends to those around her make her an invaluable member of the ENRICH team.”

– Dr. Ingrid Waldron, Ph.D.
Founder and Executive Director of the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities and Community Health Project
(The ENRICH Project)

I live, work, and play on stolen Indigenous lands, located in what is colonially called Toronto, Ontario, Canada. These lands are the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples. Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 (signed with the Mississaugas of the Credit), and the Williams Treaties (signed with multiple Mississaugas and Chippewa bands).

We are located in the Annex on what is now called Spadina Road. The Anishinaabemowin word ishpadinaa means “high hill” or “going up the hill”. The Native Canadian Centre of Toronto (NCCT) is located nearby, and has long been a key place of support for Indigenous Peoples to gather to resist assimilation together, provide a support network, and nurture Indigenous knowledge. Today, the Toronto Public Library’s Spadina Branch houses one of Toronto’s biggest collections of Indigenous materials, partially provided by the NCCT in the 1980s. Further North on Spadina Road is the junction of two historic Indigenous trails in Toronto: Ishpadinaa and Gete-Onigaming (now Davenport Road).

Current signage at the above location was inspired by the Ogimaa Mikana Project, which in 2016 replaced official street signs and historical plaques in the city of Toronto with Anishinaabe versions. One such plaque reads:

“We are slowly reclaiming our territories from an alien landscape committed to erasing us while contributing to the growing Indigenous cultural, political and linguistic revitalization efforts across Turtle Island. In the space between raising up our nations and languages and reminding non-Indigenous people that they are on Indian land, we hope to create dialogue.”

Anemochory Consulting