Hannah Alper
A white teenager with long brown hair is sitting, holding a microphone, wearing a dark blue shirt. She is leaning to her right, looking to her left—right of the camera.
At We Day Seattle, 23 April 2015
Born2002 or 2003 (age 20–21)
NationalityCanadian
Occupations
Years active2012–present
Websitecallmehannah.ca[1]

Hannah Alper (born 2002 or 2003) is a Canadian[2] activist, blogger, and journalist who was active in those fields before her teens.

Personal life

A Jewish-Canadian,[2] Hannah Alper was born in 2002 or 2003 to Candace[1] and Eric Alper.[3] In 2013, her mother worked "helping children in their community through social programs and summer camps and music therapy" and her father worked for eOne Music Canada while founding a charity to buy hearing aids for children in need.[4] In 2020 the family was living in the Toronto suburb of Richmond Hill, Ontario.[2]

Activism

Values like tzedakah [charity] and especially tikkun olam [repairing the world] are at the core of everything I do as an activist, […] It's about repairing the world, which I believe we must do. That approach shaped me into the type of person I am today, someone who's also passionate about community[2]

In July 2012,[1] Alper launched her blog—Call Me Hannah—where she spoke about causes important to her: animal welfare, habitat destruction, and the natural environment;[5] within the year, her blog had received 100,000 page-views.[4] By 2020 she had expanded her advocacy to anti-bullying and "kindraising", what she described as "changing our communities and the world through kindness." At the same time, her blog had "a huge following", accumulated 40000 Twitter followers, 13000 Instagram followers,[2] and earned her an interview by George Stroumboulopoulos.[1]

Alper has given a motivational speech for ME to WE, served as an ambassador for Free the Children,[5] spoken at the World Wildlife Fund's Toronto event for Earth Hour, and raised CA$975 (in pennies) from schoolchildren for Free the Children. Her 2014 TEDx talk, "How to find your spark", was viewed over 2400 times in less than one week.[3] Nominated by Lilly Singh in 2017,[6] Alper was the only teenager of Bloomberg Businessweek's 19 people to watch in 2018. By mid-2020, she had given "more than 400 speeches", and was elected co-president of the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization's Lake Ontario Region chapter.[2]

Journalism

As a teen journalist,[2] Alper has written for The Huffington Post[5] and interviewed Malala Yousafzai,[7] Craig Kielburger, Spencer West,[4] Jian Ghomeshi, and Severn Cullis-Suzuki. In 2013, Alper was the official blogger for the Juno Awards.[1] Released on 1 November 2017, Alper's first book—Momentus: Small Acts, Big Change— is a collection of interviews with 19 of her role models (including Singh, Yousafzai, and Lily Collins), hoping to empower youth to take action and make the changes they want to see in the world.[8] 2020 saw Alper feature in the pilot episode of CitizenKids: Earth Comes First, a TV series adapted from the Kids Can Press series of CitizenKid books; she, Cooper Price, Charlene Rocha, and series star Sophia Mathur "set out to tackle climate change issues from the perspective of today’s youth."[9]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Kielburger, Craig; Kielburger, Marc (19 August 2013). "How a 10-Year-Old Blogger Is Changing the World". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 7 January 2022. Retrieved 7 January 2022. Hannah Alper is a 10-year-old blogger with a resume that would make recent journalism grads jealous. She earned a press pass for the 2013 Juno Awards, where she worked backstage as their official blogger. The reach of her environmental blog, callmehannah.ca, has landed her in the hot seat as interviewee with the likes of CBC Television's George Stroumboulopoulos.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Sarner, Robert (17 July 2020). "Meet Canada's 17-year-old Jewish 'Greta Thunberg' who says activism is a mitzvah". The Times of Israel. Toronto. OCLC 969749342. Archived from the original on 27 November 2021. Retrieved 9 January 2022. Where many see the world going down the tubes, Hannah Alper sees opportunity to improve — and wields considerable clout after starting her blogging career at the ripe old age of 9
  3. 1 2 Kalinauskas, Nadine (31 January 2014). "Canadian activist Hannah Alper, 11, gives inspirational Tedx Talk". Yahoo!. Archived from the original on 21 December 2018. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 Hanes, Tracy (16 September 2013). "What do you want to be when you grow up? An activist". The Globe and Mail. ISSN 0319-0714. Archived from the original on 17 June 2018. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 "11 Teens Using Social Media for Good Deeds". Smart Social. Media Leaders. 1 September 2020. Archived from the original on 7 January 2022. Retrieved 7 January 2022.
  6. ↑ Goodman, Jillian, ed. (30 November 2017). "Watch These People in 2018". Bloomberg Businessweek. ISSN 0007-7135. Archived from the original on 31 October 2021. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
  7. ↑ Alper, Eric (13 April 2017). "Nobel Peace Prize winner and education activist, Malala Yousafzai's Exclusive Interview With 14-Year-Old Blogger Hannah Alper". That Eric Alper. Archived from the original on 19 July 2020. Retrieved 9 January 2022.
  8. ↑ Finney, Laura (26 October 2017). "Richmond Hill teen activist, blogger Hannah Alper now an author". York Region. Archived from the original on 12 July 2018. Retrieved 9 January 2022. First book features interviews with inspiring people
  9. ↑ Romaniuk, Colleen (15 May 2020). "Sudbury youth climate activist stars in documentary TV series". The Sudbury Star. ISSN 0839-2544. Archived from the original on 19 February 2021. Retrieved 9 January 2022. Earth Comes First will air on YTV's The Zone on World Environment Day

Further reading

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