Remembering Yasmin Lajoie
6 June 2022
We are incredibly sad to announce the passing of Yasmin Lajoie, one of the members of the NUM team.
Yasmin was a valued part of NUM, bringing empathy, curiosity and a strong sense of justice and equity to her work. As part of the Racial Justice project, she was passionate about ending violence, championing the rights of sex workers of colour, and challenging systems of oppression. She was someone who not only believed that the world could be a better, kinder, safer, more just place, but who worked towards that goal every day.
Yasmin was involved in activism on sex workers’ rights, climate justice, racial justice, trans rights, and the rights of women and girls. She was a student, a writer, and involved in the music industry. She lives on in the podcasts she recorded, the articles she published, and the many communities she worked with and alongside as an activist, and as a friend.
We will remember her at NUM as someone who cared deeply about community, solidarity and care for others, who lived by these values and shared them with the team, and with the world.
Update: 20th June 2022
Many of Yasmin’s chosen family and friends met to remember her in London, and we would like to share some more of what was said at the event. Sophie, Yasmin’s colleague on the Racial Justice project, attended and shared her own wishes and those of the NUM team with everyone there.
“At the memorial, there were friends from various different things Yas did, old jobs, chosen family, some beautiful flowers, some gorgeous glowy dusk sunlight, a couple of dogs (including mine, who ended up being therapy dogs!), candles, incense, joss paper, offerings, red umbrellas, a beautiful collage of photos, pieces of artwork, letters and notes written to Yas, lots of tears, laughter, hugs, and more.
Lots of her friends are keen to see the Racial Justice work continue and I’ve promised to keep in touch about it. One person shared with me that Yas had called her up a couple of weeks after starting the project and was so happy to have been given the chance to work with NUM and on a project that was deeply important and meaningful to her.”
NUM contributed the following statement to the event:
“Earlier this week, many of us at NUM met for the first time, and we felt Yasmin’s absence clearly. She was supposed to have joined us at the table as we ate vegan pizza, and been there as we got to know each other for the first time, choosing silly words to say instead of “cheese” as we took our first team photo.
Instead, we spent some time remembering her. We may not have known Yasmin for long, but she touched many of our lives in the time that she was with us. Overwhelmingly, people remembered her vibrancy, her sense of justice, and her strength of personality and conviction. She left an impression on all of us, from those who she worked with closely to those of us who’d only met her a couple of times, through a screen in team meetings. She was a force to be reckoned with, and used this force to make the world a better place for the people who needed it to be.
Yasmin joining NUM was serendipitous. She sent us an email for a vacancy which had closed a few days previously. Luckily, we were still looking for someone to fill it. We were all lucky to have her in our lives, and we are only sad that she couldn’t have been there longer. She lives on at NUM in the research she’s done, and for the world in the podcasts she’s recorded, articles she’s written, and the communities she worked with and for as an activist, and as a friend.
We will remember her at NUM as someone who cared deeply about community, solidarity and care for others, who lived by these values and shared them with the team, and with the world.
Rest in power.”