Leadership

Youness Robert-Tahiri

HaHaHelps Founder + Psychology Researcher

Youness Robert-Tahiri is the founder of HaHaHelps, a comedy-based psychosocial initiative supporting youth facing adversity. After training at theatre school in New York City, he spent more than a decade performing and teaching improvisational comedy, including at internationally recognized institutions such as The Second City and Bad Dog Theatre in Toronto. His work brings that artistic practice into dialogue with psychological science.

He holds an Honours Bachelor of Science in Psychology Research (High Distinction) from the University of Toronto in Canada and is currently completing a Master of Social Science in Psychology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. His master’s thesis builds directly on years of classroom observation, formally evaluating humour-based interventions he began developing after repeatedly noticing a consistent pattern: youth who struggled most with interpersonal skills and belonging on the first day of class often demonstrated the most striking growth in confidence and communication by the final session of a program. This pattern became especially noticeable when improvisational exercises were paired with structured reflection prompts designed to help participants connect the experience of the game to real-life challenges.

Since 2024, with initial support through the competitive Laidlaw Leadership and Research Scholarship, Youness has built on these observations to lead resilience-focused comedy programmes at SOS Children’s Villages in South Africa, working with orphaned, abandoned, and precariously housed youth. His programs integrate emotional regulation, perspective-taking, social connection, and self-expression through experiential, play-based methods — creating structured environments where young people can safely experiment, connect, and rebuild confidence.

Having experienced significant adversity in his own youth, Youness understands firsthand how humour can function not as avoidance, but as survival, connection, and resilience. HaHaHelps was born from that lived insight — and from a belief that healing does not always have to begin with pathology; sometimes, it begins with laughter. His long-term vision is to translate that belief into scalable, culturally adaptable comedy-based interventions that can be implemented globally in schools, community centres, and child-focused organisations.