The Life Talk and Tug-of-Life Team

Izabella Gates

Izabella (aka Izabella Little and Izabella Little-Gates) is the founder and Managing Director of the Life Talk Forum, and author of the Life Talk books. One of her key focus areas is to get teens and young adults thinking about their choices and actions. A question that Izabella has posed to tens of thousands of teens is “Who do you want to be and what outcomes do you want?”. She encourages teens to avoid any behaviour that leads them away from their ultimate “goal person”. The many enthusiastic emails that she receives from teens and young adults bear testimony to the powerfully positive impact that her question has on their decisions and actions. Many of the valuable lessons Izabella learnt through her own diverse experiences are contained in her books. She appears frequently on TV and radio programmes, is often quoted in the print media, and gives a number of talks. 

Sally Thorp

Sally is a Director of the Life Talk Forum and author of the Self-Esteem chapter in Life Talk for Parents. She is based in Johannesburg and heads up a number of Life Talk’s initiatives. With a degree in psychology, Sally believes that parenting, and creating a happy and healthy family, is one of the most important, challenging and rewarding tasks ever faced by adults. Her work in the Forum raises awareness about the issues and challenges faced by youth and parents. She stimulates debate with a focus on solutions in order to achieve behaviour change in certain areas. Sally explores ways of encouraging parents and teens to become all that they can be by making healthy choices and having a positive attitude.Sally is a representative of the International Council of Self-Esteem and an affiliate of Building Self-Esteem.  She works with many organisations and regularly appears on radio and TV.  Sally frequently gives talks and runs workshops on the issues and challenges in the adolescent and parenting world.

Nicoleen Davies

Nicoleen is based in Johannesburg and, having a corporate background, is responsible for business development for Life Talk Initiatives.  Her focus is growing the Life Talk initiatives in a sustainable manner to help the organisation to realize its objectives.

Natasha Swift

Natasha is a Cape Town based Certified Professional Life Coach as well as Parent /Teen Coach and proud to be a part of the Life Talk Team. In addition to facilitating talks and workshops for Life Talk, she has a private practice supporting teens (as well as their parents) to navigate the challenges of the teen years. Her passion is to guide teens to be leaders in their own lives, to live with vision, to develop a healthy self esteem, manage stress and effectively relate to others.

Suzie Linstrom

Suzie is a non-executive director of the Life Talk Forum in the Cape, and is available only to do talks. She has a degree in Social work, worked extensively in child play therapy and ran her own private practice. Suzie’s talks and workshops are in high demand among parents, teens and educators, and she appears regularly on radio programmes that focus on youth and parenting issues, she believes that a positive attitude can solve any problem – and she lives life accordingly!