Garry Norman

Title: Senior Leadership Facilitator
Interesting Fact: Our musician in residence, Garrry plays 10 different musical instruments. Guitar was his first and his latest passion is the tabla, which is an Indian hand drum.

Using words and song to inspire change, Garrry Norman is an outspoken advocate for social justice through youth activism. His work has impacted hundreds of thousands of young people since he joined Free The Children in April of 2004, excelling as a key facilitator for international trips and youth empowerment initiatives. During the last school year alone, Garrry spoke to 40,000 young people on the We Generation speaking tour.

Garrry is now privileged to “bring the funk” to eager young people across North America with the O Ambassadors tour, empowering them to change the world by matching their unique talents with issues they care about. A gifted speaker, facilitator and musician, Garrry is inspired by the dedication of youth in their push for positive and sustainable world change. To learn and to help as much as possible, Garrry has travelled to more than 15 countries, volunteered extensively in Haiti and led International Volunteer and Leadership Trips to India and China. With song as his preferred medium of communication, he has turned music into action by organizing concerts to benefit both local and international causes. He has researched, developed and coordinated special events such as a Model United Nations and a series of environmental workshops for a local school board, and studied creative writing and communications at York University where he was editor in chief of the student newspaper.

Garrry is a passionate poet, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, having played guitar for most of his life. In the future he plans to publish his socially-conscious writing, tour the globe playing uplifting songs and work with marginalised youth to explore music as a tool of empowerment. He is inspired every day by his personal mantra: “The meaning of life is to help each other through it.”