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Lilia Esi
Community Facilitator| DEI Practitioner| Public Sector Communications Advisor | African-Centred Rites of Passage Practitioner
Lilia Esi brings over 30 years of experience across the public and not-for-profit sectors, grassroots community organizing in Canada, Dominica, and Ghana, and corporate communications in the public sector. She is an African-centred Rites of Passage practitioner, guiding individuals through life transitions rooted in ancient traditions, supporting healing, purpose, and community rebuilding. She has also led and organized culturally connecting excursions within Ontario, Nova Scotia, Ghana, and West Africa, fostering intercultural understanding and pride.
Through her microbusiness, Esi Aya Initiatives, Lilia has spent more than a decade partnering with organizations and communities to deliver transformative DEI, anti-oppression, anti-racism, and anti-Black racism training. She designs culturally rooted programs that strengthen identity, confidence, and community connection for youth, women, seniors, employees, and leaders.
Currently, Lilia serves as a Communications Advisor in the Public Sector, leading award-winning DEI and internal communications strategies. She has chaired DEI Committees and is currently a DEI Chair Advisor, supporting the planning, design, and communication of DEI initiatives. She collaborates across teams—including People & Culture and senior leadership—to ensure DEI strategies are effectively embedded in the organization's culture.
Lilia develops and facilitates culturally grounded programs, curricula, and healing circles that foster self-awareness, resilience, and community strength. Her work has been published in the YWCA Life Skills Manual. Her story is featured in Love + Lifestyle: Inspiration for Women. Recognized for her anti-oppression work, she has received the Eva’s Initiatives Award of Distinction and the Diversity Award from Eva’s Initiatives.
Lilia is dedicated to creating safe, healing spaces that inspire systemic change and collective growth.
About Me
Indigenous Land Acknowledgement
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Esi Aya Initiatives acknowledges the Land we are on is the traditional territory of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. I also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 signed with the Mississaugas of the Credit and the Williams Treaties signed with multiple Mississaugas and Chippewa bands.
The Dish With One Spoon is a treaty between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas and Haudenosaunee that bound them to share the territory and protect the Land. Subsequent Indigenous Nations and peoples, Europeans and all newcomers have been invited into this treaty in the spirit of peace, friendship and respect.
Esi Aya Initiatives acknowledges the many people of African descent who are not settlers but whose ancestors were forcibly displaced as part of the transatlantic slave trade, brought against their will, and made to work on these lands.
We recognize that Indigenous sovereignty is linked to our collective liberation, and it is essential that we continue to reflect on ways that we can mobilize and take action in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples and communities.
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I am thankful for the ability to live, work, and gather on this Land, and I acknowledge my responsibility to be a steward of it.