Kim is an activist, educator, and a leading voice in the global movement for belonging. She founded the Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness, which works with advocates and researchers to fight social isolation and build belonging around the world. She is Visiting Research Fellow at Green Templeton college, Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), and the Fulbright Canada Ambassador for diversity and social connectedness. Kim is the author of On Belonging: Finding Connection in an Age of Isolation, an exploration of the crisis of social isolation and our birthright of Belonging.
Kim Samuel is a social activist and educator. She is the founder and chief belonging officer of the Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness, a Montreal-based “think-and-do tank” that partners with leading advocacy groups and research organizations to conduct ground-breaking work in the field of building belonging. She has lectured at institutions including Oxford, Harvard, and Vancouver Island University, and during her time as a Professor of Practice at McGill University’s Institute for the Study of International Development, she developed and taught a course addressing social isolation and social connectedness through the dual lens of program and policy development.
Ms. Samuel is currently serving as the first-ever Fulbright Canada Ambassador for Diversity and Social Connectedness. She was also recently named a visiting scholar at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, University of Oxford. She has organized three Global Symposia on Social Isolation and Deepening Social Connectedness, with a fourth currently slated for Fall 2022. Her book On Belonging: Finding Connection in an Age of Isolation will be published with Abrams Press in September 2022.