A Jewish-Canadian,[2] Hannah Alper was born in 2002 or 2003 to Candace[1] and Eric Alper.[3] In 2013, her mother worked "helping children in their community through social programs and summer camps and music therapy" and her father worked for eOne Music Canada while founding a charity to buy hearing aids for children in need.[4] In 2020 the family was living in the Toronto suburb of Richmond Hill, Ontario.[2]
Activism
Values like tzedakah [charity] and especially tikkun olam [repairing the world] are at the core of everything I do as an activist, […] It's about repairing the world, which I believe we must do. That approach shaped me into the type of person I am today, someone who's also passionate about community[2]
In July 2012,[1] Alper launched her blog—Call Me Hannah—where she spoke about causes important to her: animal welfare, habitat destruction, and the natural environment;[5] within the year, her blog had received 100,000 page-views.[4] By 2020 she had expanded her advocacy to anti-bullying and "kindraising", what she described as "changing our communities and the world through kindness." At the same time, her blog had "a huge following", accumulated 40000 Twitter followers, 13000 Instagram followers,[2] and earned her an interview by George Stroumboulopoulos.[1]
Alper has given a motivational speech for ME to WE, served as an ambassador for Free the Children,[5] spoken at the World Wildlife Fund's Toronto event for Earth Hour, and raised CA$975 (in pennies) from schoolchildren for Free the Children. Her 2014 TEDx talk, "How to find your spark", was viewed over 2400 times in less than one week.[3] Nominated by Lilly Singh in 2017,[6] Alper was the only teenager of Bloomberg Businessweek's 19 people to watch in 2018. By mid-2020, she had given "more than 400 speeches", and was elected co-president of the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization's Lake Ontario Region chapter.[2]
^ abcdeKielburger, Craig; Kielburger, Marc (19 August 2013). "How a 10-Year-Old Blogger Is Changing the World". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on 7 January 2022. Retrieved 7 January 2022. Hannah Alper is a 10-year-old blogger with a resume that would make recent journalism grads jealous. She earned a press pass for the 2013 Juno Awards, where she worked backstage as their official blogger. The reach of her environmental blog, callmehannah.ca, has landed her in the hot seat as interviewee with the likes of CBC Television's George Stroumboulopoulos.
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