On the streets, spontaneous conversations often reveal incredible depths of creativity, resilience, and hard-won wisdom. In this feature, we connect with Leah to talk about her passions, how she navigates family challenges, and what brings genuine vitality to her days.
For Leah, feeling alive is centred around meaningful human connection and creative expression:
"Spending time with my friends and with my family, just doing things I love, I enjoy writing, drawing and painting. That's definitely what brings me the most life."
Opening up about the heavy hurdles she has faced growing up, Leah shares an honest reflection on her brother's involvement in a gang and what that firsthand experience taught her about the world:
"My brother was in a gang, that was really difficult for me. All throughout my main teen years of my childhood. It was full of social workers. Me and my brother were so close before all happened. I kind of lost my brother... But he's in a much better place now... It taught me a lot about life. How much of a different world there is right next to you, how close kind of that whole criminal underworld really is. Having to experience firsthand, it taught me a lot about the world and how it works."
Closing our conversation, Leah shares a powerful and grounding message for the world on accountability and character:
"No matter what you've gone through in life, just be a good person... Don't use your past as an excuse to get away with things. It's really important to hold your moral values and go through life trying to be as good a person as possible, because that's what's going to make the world a better place."
