The Youth as Changemakers Award, sponsored by Desjardins Insurance and the Honda Canada Foundation, celebrates three outstanding young leaders or groups of young leaders from across Canada who are making a real difference in their communities.
These changemakers are passionate about creating safer streets for everyone and are turning their ideas into action through advocacy, collaboration and community mobilization. Working alongside their peers, local organizations and community leaders, they champion evidence-based solutions that help save lives and inspire lasting change.
Each winner, or team of winners, receive a $1,000 honorarium, along with national recognition for their impact, highlighting the creativity, passion and leadership youth bring to creating safer roads for all.
2025 Winners
Keana Gigliotti (Calgary, Alta.)
Keana has been a member of the Canadian Youth Road Safety Council since 2022 and stepped into the leadership of co-chair for the 2024/2025 and 2025/2026 council term.
Through Snap for Change, Keana submitted a request to the City of Calgary for lane dividers, signage and separated bike lanes to improve safety on a roadway near the University of Calgary. This area features a wide single lane road which is typically used as two lanes due to a lack of signage and painted lines. On this road, she sees cyclists and pedestrians at risk for serious injury or death due to the lack of safe infrastructure.
Additionally, Keana’s creative efforts in promoting our Snap for Change initiative and recent blog post: Lesson from the left lane: Road safety abroad, demonstrate her deep passion for road safety and advocating for evidence-based solutions and policies that promote safe mobility for Canadian youth and all road users.
Alexander Depew and Leighton Underhill (Hamilton, Ont.)
Parachute Youth Road Safety Ambassadors Alexander Depew and Leighton Underhill surveyed trail users in the Dundas Valley Conservation Area to assess safety at two key road crossings. Their results confirmed widespread concerns over driver speed, poor signage visibility and obstructed sightlines.
In collaboration with Golden Horseshoe Cycling Hub (GHCH), the ambassadors proposed solutions, including staggered barriers, improved signage and traffic calming, which they advocated for through a community town hall meeting and sharing their findings with a local city councillor. To raise awareness, they created infographics on how to cross roadways safely for GHCH’s youth cycling program.
Joshua Lyttle, Muhammad Ali Hafeez, Aman Samir Ahmed and Jermaine Walters (Toronto, Ont.)
Fullride aims to tackle traffic congestion, emissions and rideshare inefficiency in Canadian cities by promoting safe, shared trips. Through driver interviews and field tests, the Parachute Youth Road Safety Ambassador team of Joshua Lyttle, Muhammad Ali Hafeez, Aman Samir Ahmed and Jermaine Walters confirmed that most rideshare trips carry only one passenger, despite many riders heading to the same places. As a solution, the team created Fullride, an app designed to connect rideshare platforms and people who are travelling to the same destination to create safer and more sustainable roads.