Introducing the Core Lab team: Keren Perla

Curious about the folks who are participating in the Shift Lab? Wonder no more! Over the next three weeks, we will feature each of the Core lab team members (12 in all) as they tell us their thoughts about social innovation, racism and poverty in Edmonton, and why they joined the Shift Lab. To start us off, meet Keren Perla. You can also check out Keren’s bio here. 

What excites me the most about Shift Lab?

Things that are in your face and obviously broken aren’t really the issue. You can see that something is wrong, and the fixes are often clear. It’s the subtle things– the things that are hidden and normalized – that take effort to notice, are harder to accept, and take time to really change.

Poverty and racism aren't the same. But their overlap and complex relationship confronts us with an uncomfortable truth about the impact of subtle biases that continue to marginalize people, covertly raising barriers and creating divisions in our policies and communities. But, here’s the thing: it doesn’t need to stay this way.

As the Edmonton Shift Lab launches this fall, it joins local efforts to end poverty and the growing lab movement in Canada. It’s a process that seeks to walk-alongside people in our communities all with different experiences and connections into this challenge. I’m excited for the opportunity to support a collective reframe of the poverty debate that unlocks our imagination on what is possible.

In doing so, it is community spirit and collaboration that will help the Edmonton Shift Lab do more than tear out unsightly weeds, but ultimately address the challenge at its hidden roots.