Sabrina is lifespark’s president, responsible for the day-to-day running of the organization and for coordinating our volunteers. Her caring nature sets the tone for all lifespark’s work.

Laura wants people of every age group to look into the subject of death penalty and take a stand against it. As social media coordinator, she is expanding lifespark’s online presence so that more people hear about us and the work we do.

Janet has a PHD in Criminology from Simon Fraser University (SF U)  in Canada . She is currently a volunteer facilitator with the Alternatives to Violence Project in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada. Janet has volunteered in custodial and community release settings with both adults and juveniles.  As a university educator she visited correctional institutions in the US (Washington State) and Canada (British Columbia) with students to educate them about prison. In many cases students had the opportunity to meet with prisoners. This experience served to break down the barriers so students could understand prisoners marginalized lives through their life stories and incarceration. Janet conducted prison research in both her Master’s and Doctoral degrees. She is a critical theorist and academic with extensive knowledge in prison studies. Janet is corresponding with three prisoners – in California, Louisiana and Texas. Her strengths are working collaboratively with others, research, and writing. Janet believes in forgiveness, redemption, transformation and a right to life for incarcerated peoples – those with the death penalty or otherwise. Janet sees people within the broader contexts of their lives – e.g., socio-structural circumstances, environmental conditions and psychological factors (trauma). In Canada, they do not have the death penalty.
Every prisoner has the hope of release and reintegration one day.

Anna-Lena was born and raised in Germany but lives in Montreal, Canada since 2008. She is a lifespark member since 2012 and actively supporting the organization since 2013. Beside lifespark she is interested in Canadian indigenous history, LGBTQ2S+ topics and black life’s matters. She likes to run, and to relax she takes hot yoga classes.

Ines has been active in the anti-death penalty field for twenty years now. In addition to writing to several pen friends in prison, she has worked on many projects for lifespark. For twelve years, she helped to run lifespark as a board member.
Five years ago, she launched her project www.connectdeathrow.org which allows students or other interested people a short-term letter exchange with an inmate on death row. It’s anonymous and neither party knows the real name of the other, so it’s safe for students who are minors. In spring 2021, she launched a blog with texts and interviews surrounding the death penalty topic.
In lifespark, she cares for interested people and helps find new members through interviews in the media.

Patrik has been active in lifespark since April 2016. He decided to join us because he opposes the death penalty and is very interested in supporting people who are on the fringes of society or who belong to a minority. Patrik is a medical student and in his spare time he likes to meet up with friends.