Interesting fact: Literature--everything from Harry Potter to Dante's Divine Comedy--is the love of her life!
With her experiences in journalism and communications, Sapna joined the Free The Children team in 2005 with the hopes of using her words to help make change in the lives of children in the developing world. As the Director of Publications, Sapna leads a dynamic team of writers and designers who bring their own creativity, passion and humour to the group that creates all the print, online, news and marketing materials for Free The Children. Her own work has been published in various newspapers and magazines, including the Toronto Star, the Mississauga News and Education Today.
Sapna’s work with Free The Children is her way of doing something she loves, while also learning from this great big, beautiful, inequitable world we live in, and from all of the people she meets. She holds a degree in political science and literature from the University of Western Ontario, and a journalism degree from Ryerson University. She loves to write. But she wants to experience life before becoming the kind of writer whose work people will want to read. Before joining the team at Free The Children, she combined her passion for international development issues with writing and research at the Peel District School Board. At the Peel board, Sapna implemented and managed the Student Leadership for Global Development Program, which helps students learn more about global issues and develop leadership skills.
She has traveled through 16 countries (so far!), experiencing the sights, smells and sounds; art, culture, people and environment of the many places she reads about in books and in the current events media. Family means the world to Sapna. Maybe the fact that she is one of four siblings and has 30 first cousins—she is very close to all of them—has something to do with it! She's a dreamer and optimist at heart, and feels this is best expressed through the words of 20th century author and playwright George Bernard Shaw: "Some see things as they are and ask why? I dare to dream of things that never were and ask why not?"