Bio

Kasha Sequoia Slavner is a Gen-Z, multi-award-winning first-time documentary filmmaker who comes to the profession as a seasoned photographer, entrepreneur and social justice advocate for over a decade. She was only 15 when she founded The Global Sunrise Project, a youth-led media hub for social good and 16 years old when she set out across the world for six months to make her first feature documentary The Sunrise Storyteller, which she completed upon returning to high school. Since it’s release in 2017 it has screened at 60+ festivals and won 30 awards, including the Ron Kovic Peace Prize for the segment on Vietnam napalm survivor Kim Phuc, as well as the Eva Haller, Women Transforming Media Award.

Using her passion for visual storytelling to make the world a better place, she was selected as the recipient of the very first Kim Phuc Youth Award for Peace . In addition, Kasha was selected for the class of 2017 Global Teen Leaders by legendary music producer Nile Rodgers’ We Are Family Foundation & TEDxTeen and was also selected into the inaugural cohort of the We Global Learning Centre's new social entrepreneurship program. In 2018 she was chosen by Yunus & Youth as one of their Fellows and in 2019 selected by Global Changemakers to join their cohort. Most recently this committed changemaker became a Diana Award Holder, for sustaining positive social change in the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales. In 2019 she was chosen to be part of the inaugural launch of projects selected for the Voices of SDG16+ at the United Nations High Level Political Forum. In September 2019, she spoke to over 750+ students at the United Nations for The International Day of Peace Student Observance on the topic of climate & peace. Recently she became a 2021 Climate Ambassador of the Global Youth Climate Network, a liaison for the One Better World Collective and a 2021 Pathfinders Trailblazer for Peace One Day Space Transformer. Kasha is an 12x UN Youth Delegate, presenter, adjudicator and a long-time member of The Canadian Voice of Women for Peace, the former Ontario Regional Advisor for the Canadian Council of Young Feminists. She is a Pacey Award Finalist. Most recently selected as one of the Wonder Grantees for Sustainability by the Shawn Mendes Foundation.

In addition, Kasha tours with a 32 piece photography exhibition “Travels into the Heart” and has completed a second large scale exhibit about Sustainable Development Goal #16 (Peace, Justice & Strong Institutions) - The exhibition is entitled Picture 16© At 17 Kasha wrote & published her first 200+ page book of photography “Reflections of the Sunrise Storyteller – A Journey into the Heart as a Global Citizen”. In addition, she uses her film and workshop she developed called A GenZ's Guide to Creating Social Change to empower youth civic engagement around the Sustainable Development Goals. She's a frequent public speaker, was commissioned by National Geographic Learning, is a contributor to Thrive Global, The Huffington Post, Good Magazine, Matador Network & more, as well as appeared in several webinars, panels, podcasts & publications, including Reuters top Women of Sustainability, Elle Canada, Seventeen Magazine, Jonathan Fields The Good Life Project, UN Foundation and more.

Currently, Kasha is in production with her second feature documentary “1.5 Degrees of Peace” which is fiscally sponsored byThe Redford Center.

Sub-specialties:
Engaging Gen-Z, youth civic engagement, youth, peace & security, gender equality, indie filmmaking, youth social entrepreneurship,
youth leadership, women's leadership and entrepreneurship, sustainable travel blog
Climate Change

Articles, Publications, Appearances