The HLF Team

Meet the Team

The whole is more than the sum of its parts. This is true with the HLF team. While each member is highly skilled, HLF’s synergy as a team enables mutual support and focus on our individual expertise.

  • Founder/Executive Director

    Trisha Kulathungam is a visionary healer, psychedelic doula, and entrepreneur.

    As a visionary healer, Trisha has dedicated the past 10 years to facilitating community-building programs, curating several public art projects, and deepening her career as a holistic wellness and addictions treatment provider. Her most recent fundraising initiative, “Self Care for a Cause,” has allowed her the opportunity to provide her clients with Self Care treatments (ie. Massage Therapy) in support of her various philanthropic projects.

    As a psychedelic doula, Trisha combines sacred medicines, massage therapy, and yoga therapy to help her clients recover from addiction and trauma patterns.

    As an entrepreneur, Trisha founded a registered charity, The Higher Learning Foundation - a charity that facilitates mental fitness community programming, provides scholarships to students, and facilitates public art projects.

    Trisha’s academic and professional training background includes a Business Degree from the University of Winnipeg, the completion of her 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training, and private mentorship with expert holistic massage practitioners and yoga therapists.

  • Vice President, BComm (Hons), PhD

    Ray is a leading researcher in psychological well-being with an expertise on flow states, also known as being ‘in the zone’. Ray is currently exploring the relationships between wellbeing and various forms of technology use, including time spent on smartphones, social media, and the use of emerging technologies like A.I. and virtual reality.

    Ray has been teaching and mentoring students at the University level for eight years and brings a wealth of knowledge to our scholarship recipients regarding what it takes to be successful at the next level of education and how to help students realize their full potential.

  • Social Worker, MSW, RSW

    Anieka has been a part of the HLF team since 2018. She completed her Bachelor of Social Work at the University of Manitoba that same year. Her experience at The Canadian Mental Health Association inspired her passion for facilitating trauma-informed healing. It is evident that trauma informed healing and mindfulness intersect with the key concepts being compassion and patience. Anieka saw that she could add value to HLF as the organization embarked on a new journey towards promoting mental fitness.

    As a Social Worker, Anieka began her career working for St. Amant as a Family-Care Program Clinician with Jordan’s Principle. This principle encompasses social work practice as it works on empowering and strengthening the next generation of First Nations children and allowing for equitable access to all public services. Starting in September 2020, Anieka acquired her Master’s in Social Work with a focus on youth and the impacts of living with mental illness.

  • Creative Director, BComm (Hons)

    Simone joined HLF in January 2021 as a co-op intern. Quickly taking to the HLF method, Simone has contributed her creative direction to the operations through brand building, social media management, course development, and business development.

    Simone pursued a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree at the Asper School of Business in Marketing & Human Resource Management. She has given back to the community by volunteering and getting involved with many student groups, startups, and non-profit organizations throughout her years of study.

  • HLF Teacher

    Angelika, a registered Certified Teacher and Early Childhood Educator, played an instrumental role in the Fundamentals Of Mental Fitness course.

    She not only contributed to its creation but also delivered the lessons to high school students during our successful pilot test in 2023.