Chasing Encounters

In today’s podcast, we have Yecid Ortega from the University of Toronto. He sees himself as a citizen of the world, and his work certainly reflects an international perspective to education and research. With a very marginalized background, he studied primary and secondary education in public schools and got interested in learning languages to understand the world. He tells the story of his life from poverty in Colombia, to working in the USA and to becoming a Canadian citizen. From a very young age, Yecid knew education was key to engage with communities and move socially. He noticed the idea of English as a symbol of power and has worked vigorously to dismantle it through critical education. His epistemological vision is engaged in a future of decolonial praxis in which educators, researchers and stakeholders work towards a better future for humanity. *Biography: Yecid Ortega is a Ph.D. candidate in the program of Language and Literacies Education (LLE) and the specialization program in Comparative Inter