Taking a Stand: Disrupting Black and Indigenous Racism

About the Event

9:45am will mark the powerful opening of Taking a Stand: Disrupting Black and Indigenous Racsim. Join the entire Algonquin College Community and our MC Ron (Degandus) McLester, Vice President – Truth, Reconciliation & Indigenization, for a drumming performance with Bear Nation, remarks from key speakers. and an electrifying African drumming performance with the Soul Drums Quartet.

About the Speakers

• Barbara Dumont- Hill – an Algonquin Elder
• Claude Brulé – President and Chief Executive Officer Algonquin College
• Greg Fergus – Member of Parliament for Hull-Aylmer
• Rawlson King – Councillor – Ward 13 Rideau-Rockcliffe
• Emily Ferguson – President Students’ Association Algonquin College

Sponsored by the Office of the President.

About the Event

Future Ancestors Services is an Indigenous and Black-owned, youth-led professional services social enterprise that advances climate justice and equity with a lens of anti-racism and ancestral accountability. At this Zoom webinar, Larissa Crawford (Founder and Managing Director, Future Ancestors Services) will discuss:

• The definition of white fragility and the history behind it.
• Understanding the impact of white fragility.
• How to respond to being called out on racist actions in a non-defensive way and the harms that are done when we respond defensively.
• The role of people of colour who aren’t Black or Indigenous in antiracism efforts.

There will be a 15-minute Q&A at the end of the presentation where attendees can submit questions.

About Larissa Crawford

Founder and Managing Director, Future Ancestors Services

Larissa is a restorative circle keeper, published Indigenous and anti-racism researcher, award-winning ribbon skirt artist, and proudly passes on Métis and Jamaican ancestry to her daughter, Zyra. She is the Founder of Future Ancestors Services, a youth-led professional services social enterprise that advances equity and climate justice through lenses of ancestral accountability and anti-racism. Larissa is a CohortX Climate Justice Fellow, a Raven Trust Capital Fireweed Fellow, Action Canada Fellow, and a 2019 Corporate Knight’s Top 30 Under 30 in Sustainability.

Sponsored by the Algonquin College Waterfront Campus in Pembroke.

About the Event

Providing context and empowerment for the Indigenous and Black communities from the perspective of an Afro-Indigenized entrepreneur. Inspiring and educating young people through music is Justin’s passion, but he does more than just sing about it.

Jah’kota’s presentation is a rapid-fire history lesson using images, video, and music. He talks about his grandmother who was forced into residential school as a child, and then went on to become the first Chief of the first all-female band and council of Ocean Man First Nation in Saskatchewan. He explains the significance of the medicine wheel, shows TV news footage from the Oka Crisis, and then he breaks the tension with music.

About Justin “Jah’kota” Holness

Afro-Indigenous Artist and Entrepreneur

Justin “Jah’kota” Holness is a passionate Afro-Indigenous artist and entrepreneur who aspires to help people be the best version of themselves through art, music, culture, and entrepreneurship. Justin believes one of the best ways Indigenous peoples can achieve their sovereignty and self-determination is through entrepreneurship. In late 2019 he also launched the first Afro-Indigenous Owned, Profit Sharing Music Streaming Platform – TR1BE Music.

Sponsored by the AC Hub.

About the Event

In these interactive sessions with Meghan Wills, certified L1 & L2 UM Mindfulness Coach, attendees are invited to explore mindfulness practices in an Afro-Caribbean Black only space. You can expect a guided session specific to self-acceptance in honor of radical self-love and compassion and mindfulness practices to vulnerable conversations all while encouraging a safe, interactive, and experiential learning environment for all that attend. Attendees are welcome to share, engage, and participate at their own comfort level throughout each session. You can expect to explore the following topics throughout the sessions:

• Mindfulness techniques, decolonizing wellness, and mental health overall.
• Mindful awareness to sexuality, sensuality, connection and relationships.
• Inviting compassion, joy, gratitude and loving kindness into ourselves and our ability to share this with our communities.
• Exploring difficult emotions such as shame, guilt, sadness, grief, restlessness, and fear.
• Inviting compassionate introspection, considering intersecting identities within our society.

Mindful wellness moments, such as brief meditations and written practices, will be infused throughout to ensure everyone has an opportunity to experience how they perceive and experience each moment. There will be “re-centering” tools to empower self-care, manage risks like burn out, self-sabotage, and over commitment to work/others. The intention of these offerings is to empower acceptance, compassion and belonging. Prioritizing the mental health of Black attendees through these sessions empowers their belonging, value, and overall wellbeing.

Sponsored by Counselling Services, Project Lighthouse, Human Resources and the School of Health & Community Studies. 

This hour long session with Jackie Tenute, Indigenous Counsellor, is a space for students and employees to gather and participate in healing and learning. This space is intended to provide any healing needed to engage in discussions around the lived experience of anti-Indigenous racism in our communities.

About the Event

Journalist and activist Desmond Cole punctured the bubble of Canadian smugness about anti-racism in his bracing and provocative book The Skin We’re In, which became 2020’s national bestseller. The book takes an uncompromising look at the systemic inequalities that continue to exist in this country.

Join Cole on Tuesday, Feb. 2 as he shares his findings and experiences on systemic racism in Canadian education, and critiques practices that put money and power above learning. With an enduring determination to influence change, Cole analyzes how anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism affects students and teachers, and offers solutions to confront generations of ongoing discrimination.

About the Speaker

Journalist, Activist, and Author

Desmond Cole is a journalist, activist, and author. He has spent the last ten years reporting and commentating on politics and social justice. He is especially interested in the struggle for Black liberation within Canada. Desmond’s work includes ten years of local and national news coverage, five years of radio broadcasting at Newstalk 1010, a disruptive opinion column with the Toronto Star and an award-winning magazine feature. He is the author of the number one national bestseller The Skin We’re In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power.

Sponsored by Inclusion Infusions and Human Resources.

Open session for employees to get together and discuss how they might apply their learning from the event. The session will be facilitated by Learning & Teaching Services, and employees are welcome to discuss issues inside or outside of the classroom. Bring your coffee!

About the Event

The Hair, Culture and Identity session explores the cultural importance of hair, and its place as an artefact of oppression for Black and Indigenous people. Speakers will include Makeda Cosper, Director of Strategy and Development of Impact Black Global, an organization that aims to connect Black youth to the people and resources around them by using social media and community platforms in order to mobilize them in pursuit of their goals. Makeda will be joined by Elaine Kicknosway, a Cree elder and knowledge keeper with hair teachings, and her son Theland Kicknosway an activist, a role model, and an educator who weaves his culture into all that he does.

About the Speakers

(L-R) Makeda Cosper, Theland Kicknosway, Elaine Kicknosway.

Makeda Cosper

Born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario, Makeda Cosper is a determined and dedicated individual who is passionate about people!

With a formal education in the areas of Community Support, facilitation and Communications, Makeda has a diverse background in Non-profit Programming, Property Management and Executive level leadership.

Whether she is supporting a volunteer run organization as a Program Manager and Supervisor or helping to build connections with city Councillors and neighbourhood associations as the Director of Community and tenant Experience within a large property management company, Makeda has always been committed to people services.

She brings this same compassionate, ethical and spirited approach to her role at Impact Black Global where she serves as the Director of Strategy and Development.

Since its inaugural initiative at Ottawa’s June 5th Black Lives Matter protest, Impact Black Global has aimed to connect the black youth in the city to the resources around them through social media and community platforms in order to mobilize them in pursuit of their goals. Their vision is to create a space which enables black youth to succeed in their sphere of interest. It is their hope to spread awareness about issues which affect this demographic most and foster greater cross cultural and generational collaboration within the community.

Presently, Makeda serves as a Regional Manager within the non -profit sector where she helps to facilitate the support of those who are congenitally deaf and blind.

Outside of her work, Makeda is also an accomplished vocalist. Formally a long-time member of Gospel groups GPM and choir Judah, she has performed in various local events including the Ottawa Bluesfest and Live CBC Broadcast. She has been privileged to perform for the right honourable Michaelle Jean on 2 occasions and has been featured on the works of Canadian artists Temple Don, Dynamic, Ryan Lewis, and Jeanette Arsenault.

With a fond love for the written and spoken word, Makeda is an aspiring author and can often be found writing or recording her podcast Mountains and Mirrors where she hopes to inspire women in self-love, self-care and self-reflection.

Lastly, Makeda is an active leader in her church community where she serves as the Director of Worship under the leadership of her Music Pastors and General Overseers Ralph and Regina Dartey.

“Whatever you do, make an impact”

Theland Kicknosway

Theland Kicknosway is Wolf Clan, Potawatami & Cree Nation and a member of Walpole Island, Bkejwanong Territory in Southern Ontario. He is a singer, a grass & hoop dancer, and helps in ceremonies in many places. He is in Virtual High School in the Ottawa Region and enjoys offering his gifts of song, dance & voice for all. He has offered his voice and songs for the Indian Residential School Survivors In 2008 and in the closing of the TRC in 2015. This past spring in 2020, he completed his 6th annual run in partnership with Families of Sisters in Spirit, and raising awareness to the children left behind of MMIWG2S. He is planning his upcoming 7th Annual MMIWG2S to run/bike from Vancouver to Ottawa this upcoming spring/summer 2021. He is the youngest Inspire Laurent 2018 under Culture Heritage and Spirituality.

Elaine Kicknosway

Elaine Kicknosway is proud to be Swampy Cree through her biological mother and Chippewa from her biological father’s side. She is a member of Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation in Northern Saskatchewan, and is Wolf Clan. She is a Sixties Scoop Survivor and returned home in late 20’s. She has been long time community advocate in the areas of child welfare, healthy families, and Indigenous women. Elaine is an Indigenous wedding officiant, KAIROS Blanket exercise facilitator and trainer, Indigenous trauma informed counsellor/ an Indigenous Full Spectrum Doula, a Traditional dancer, singer, drummer and carrier of ceremonial teachings. Elaine has also won the Alumni of Distinction Award at Algonquin College.

Sponsored by the Algonquin College Innovation Fund. 

About the Event

In these interactive sessions with Meghan Wills, certified L1 & L2 UM Mindfulness Coach, attendees are invited to explore mindfulness practices in an Afro-Caribbean Black only space. You can expect a guided session specific to self-acceptance in honor of radical self-love and compassion and mindfulness practices to vulnerable conversations all while encouraging a safe, interactive, and experiential learning environment for all that attend. Attendees are welcome to share, engage, and participate at their own comfort level throughout each session. You can expect to explore the following topics throughout the sessions:

• Mindfulness techniques, decolonizing wellness, and mental health overall.
• Mindful awareness to sexuality, sensuality, connection, and relationships.
• Inviting compassion, joy, gratitude, and loving kindness into ourselves and our ability to share this with our communities.
• Exploring difficult emotions such as shame, guilt, sadness, grief, restlessness, and fear.
• Inviting compassionate introspection considering intersecting identities within our society.

Mindful wellness moments, such as brief meditations and written practices, will be infused throughout to ensure everyone has an opportunity to experience how they perceive and experience each moment. There will be “re-centering” tools to empower self-care, manage risks like burn out, self-sabotage and over commitment to work/others. The intention of these offerings is to empower acceptance, compassion and belonging. Prioritizing the mental health of Black attendees through these sessions empowers their belonging, value and overall wellbeing.

Sponsored by Counselling Services, Project Lighthouse, Human Resources and the School of Health & Community Studies. 

This hour long session with Jackie Tenute, Indigenous Counsellor, is a space for students and employees to gather and participate in healing and learning. This space is intended to provide any healing needed to engage in discussions around the lived experience of anti-Indigenous racism in our communities.

About the Event

Algonquin Students’ Association presents In Conversation with Blair Imani. Moderated chat, book reading and audience Q&A.

About Blair Imani

Writer, Mental Health Advocate and Historian

Blair Imani is a writer, mental health advocate, and historian living at the intersections of Black, Queer, and Muslim identity. In addition to being a public speaker, Blair is the author of Modern HERstory: Stories of Women and Nonbinary People Rewriting History (2018) and Lifting As We Climb: The Great Migration & the Black American Dream which hits shelves in January 2020. She is also the official ambassador of Muslims for Progressive Values, one of the oldest progressive Muslim organizations to support the LGBTQ+ community.

A copy of Blair’s book will be available for attendees of the event, featuring Making Our Way Home: The Great Migration and the Black American Dream.

Sponsored by the Algonquin Students’ Association.

About the Event

This is an informal and intimate conversation between Waubgeshig Rice, author and journalist, and Julie McCann, coordinator of the journalism program at Algonquin College, that will explore the role culture and lived experiences play in creative work as a writer. It will question if this is any different from his experience as a journalist. What should students and the College community know and understand about other creators — business people, inventors, artists — who also draw upon cultural roots to succeed in their work? How can we learn to better appreciate this approach in others — and learn to apply the approach to our own endeavors?

About Waubgeshig Rice

Author and Journalist

Waubgeshig Rice is an author and journalist originally from Wasauksing First Nation. His first short story collection, Midnight Sweatlodge, was inspired by his experiences growing up in an Anishinaabe community, and won an Independent Publishers Book Award in 2012. His debut novel, Legacy, followed in 2014. A French translation was published in 2017. His latest novel, Moon of the Crusted Snow, was released in October 2018 and became a national bestseller.

Waub got his first taste of journalism in 1996 as an exchange student in Germany, writing articles about being an Anishinaabe teen in a foreign country for newspapers back in Canada. He graduated from Ryerson University’s journalism program in 2002. He’s worked in a variety of news media since, reporting for CBC News for the bulk of his career. In 2014, he received the Anishinabek Nation’s Debwewin Citation for excellence in First Nation Storytelling. His most recently role was host of Up North, CBC Radio’s afternoon show for northern Ontario. He left CBC in May 2020 to focus on his literary career.

His proudest roles are as dad to Jiikwis and Ayaabehns and husband to Sarah. The family splits its time between Sudbury and Wasauksing.

Sponsored by the School of Media and Design. 

About the Event

In these interactive sessions with Meghan Wills, certified L1 & L2 UM Mindfulness Coach, attendees are invited to explore mindfulness practices in an Afro-Caribbean Black only space. You can expect a guided session specific to self-acceptance in honor of radical self-love and compassion and mindfulness practices to vulnerable conversations all while encouraging a safe, interactive, and experiential learning environment for all that attend. Attendees are welcome to share, engage, and participate at their own comfort level throughout each session. You can expect to explore the following topics throughout the sessions:

• Mindfulness techniques, decolonizing wellness, and mental health overall.
• Mindful awareness to sexuality, sensuality, connection, and relationships.
• Inviting compassion, joy, gratitude and loving kindness into ourselves and our ability to share this with our communities.
• Exploring difficult emotions such as shame, guilt, sadness, grief, restlessness, and fear.
• Inviting compassionate introspection considering intersecting identities within our society.

Mindful wellness moments, such as brief meditations and written practices, will be infused throughout to ensure everyone has an opportunity to experience how they perceive and experience each moment. There will be “re-centering” tools to empower self-care, manage risks like burn out, self-sabotage, and over commitment to work/others. The intention of these offerings is to empower acceptance, compassion and belonging. Prioritizing the mental health of Black attendees through these sessions empowers their belonging, value, and overall wellbeing.

Sponsored by Counselling Services, Project Lighthouse, Human Resources and the School of Health & Community Studies. 

This hour long session with Jackie Tenute, Indigenous Counsellor, is a space for students and employees to gather and participate in healing and learning. This space is intended to provide any healing needed to engage in discussions around the lived experience of anti-Indigenous racism in our communities.

About the Event

All learners deserve to feel physically and emotionally safe in their classes. The goal of this Zoom webinar is to educate the Algonquin College community about the roles students and employees play in creating safer classroom environments for Black and Indigenous students, and to validate the experiences of Black and Indigenous learners with speakers with shared lived experiences who can offer insight and advice. Topics include:

• Creating a network of support if you’re a Black or Indigenous student.
• Protecting your mental health in a classroom if you feel unsupported.
• Examining the unique dynamics at play in a classroom that can be challenging for marginalized students.
• Suggested strategies if you’re facing microaggressions in the classroom, and what to do if you witness them.
• Understanding what language is off limits, even in an academic context.
• Your role in creating safer spaces for Black and Indigenous students (as a college, in the classroom, on projects, in group discussions, etc.).

There will be a 10-minute Q&A at the end of the presentation where attendees can submit questions.

About the Speakers

(L-R) Atong Ater, Gabrielle Fayant-Lewis, Sacha Leduc.

Atong Ater
Atong Ater is an Ottawa-based policy analyst, producer, and writer. She has a passion for science, sports, and storytelling and works with the Federal Black Employee Caucus to address issues of anti-Black racism within the federal public service. Atong holds a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Neuroscience and a Master of Journalism from Carleton University. Atong recently shared her experiences in an article for CBC, entitled, “The unexpected costs of journalism school for a black student,” and was part of a group of BIPOC students and graduates who penned a call to action for institutional change in their journalism program.

Gabrielle Fayant-Lewis
Gabrielle Fayant-Lewis originates from Fishing Lake Metis Settlement, AB. Gabrielle is an award-winning woman for her work in the community, youth empowerment, and Indigenous rights awareness. She has worked with several Indigenous and non-profit organizations and is currently the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Assembly of Seven Generations (A7G). A7G is an Indigenous owned and youth-led, non-profit organization focused on cultural support and empowerment programs/policies for Indigenous youth while being led by traditional knowledge and Elder guidance.

Sacha Leduc (Moderator)
Sacha Leduc is an Online Student Pathway Advisor and Professor at Algonquin College. Prior to working at the College, she worked as an Employment Counsellor with marginalized clients in the community for over 5 years. Sacha holds a Bachelor of Social Work from Carleton University and she is a student at Athabasca University studying in the Master of Education in Distance Education program. Sacha is passionate about promoting inclusion in online and classroom environments to ensure that all students belong.

Sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Truth, Reconciliation, and Indigenization.

About the Event

Put simply, hiring processes should be facilitated in a manner that enables connection — connection between candidates and the client organization. Hiring processes — which have become more impersonal, stringent, and cookie cutter over time — have taken the human out of human resources. When equity-seeking communities are not robustly represented on decision-making teams, outdated hiring processes can preclude them from obtaining the positions that they vie for. In some cases, outdated hiring processes can cause them to avoid competing for positions altogether.

How Disrupting the Hiring Process Can Increase Representation is a session that provides recipients with insights and best practices when working to attract diverse candidates, thereby increasing the likelihood of more diverse hires. From the way advertisements are crafted, to the way sourcing and candidate development is approached, to the importance of cultural competence on the side of the hiring officer/committee when interviewing, each step of the hiring process must infuse equity considerations to attract a robust slate of equity-seeking candidates to hiring processes.

About Jason Murray

President and Managing Partner, BIPOC Executive Search

Over the course of his career, Jason has worked on 300+ executive searches as well as a range of EDI services in partnership with client companies. Prior to founding BIPOC Executive Search Inc., Jason worked at a multinational executive search firm as well as a boutique search firm before that. For part of his career, he worked in the Consulting Division of Deloitte & Touche as the Human Capital and Strategy & Operations Supervisor. In this position he provided organizational management and HR services to the 994 individuals in the division, and was a respected voice around matters of equity, diversity, and inclusion and increasing representation throughout the organization.

Jason has a community-facing orientation, and currently serves as Chair of the Board for the Toronto Fringe Festival. He has done work with a number of organizations that have a deep and abiding commitment to representation in the workforce, including the Canadian Board Diversity Council, G(irls)20, and Pride at Work Canada.

Jason holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto, and a Master’s degree in Management from Boston University. He is certified in unconscious-bias decision making and iOS app development, and has completed courses on predicative data analytics and artificial intelligence in recruitment and retention.

Sponsored by Human Resources. 

Open session for employees to get together and discuss how they might apply their learning from the event. The session will be facilitated by Learning & Teaching Services, and employees are welcome to discuss issues inside or outside of the classroom. Bring your coffee!

About the Event

In these interactive sessions with Meghan Wills, certified L1 & L2 UM Mindfulness Coach, attendees are invited to explore mindfulness practices in an Afro-Caribbean Black only space. You can expect a guided session specific to self-acceptance in honor of radical self-love and compassion and mindfulness practices to vulnerable conversations all while encouraging a safe, interactive, and experiential learning environment for all that attend. Attendees are welcome to share, engage, and participate at their own comfort level throughout each session. You can expect to explore the following topics throughout the sessions:

• Mindfulness techniques, decolonizing wellness, and mental health overall.
• Mindful awareness to sexuality, sensuality, connection, and relationships.
• Inviting compassion, joy, gratitude and loving kindness into ourselves and our ability to share this with our communities.
• Exploring difficult emotions such as shame, guilt, sadness, grief, restlessness, fear.
• Inviting compassionate introspection considering intersecting identities within our society.

Mindful wellness moments, such as brief meditations and written practices, will be infused throughout to ensure everyone has an opportunity to experience how they perceive and experience each moment. There will be “re-centering” tools to empower self-care, manage risks like burn out, self-sabotage, and over commitment to work/others. The intention of these offerings is to empower acceptance, compassion and belonging. Prioritizing the mental health of Black attendees through these sessions empowers their belonging, value and overall wellbeing.

Sponsored by Counselling Services, Project Lighthouse, Human Resources and the School of Health & Community Studies. 

This hour long session with Jackie Tenute, Indigenous Counsellor, is a space for students and employees to gather and participate in healing and learning. This space is intended to provide any healing needed to engage in discussions around the lived experience of anti-Indigenous racism in our communities.

About the Event

Twin Flames take listeners on a musical journey across Canada and the Arctic, echoing the voices of their ancestors and depicting life on the land. Together, Chelsey June (Métis) and Jaaji (Inuk, Mohawk) represent the Indigenous groups in Canada (Inuit, First Nations and Métis). Their songs are written in English, French and Inuktitut. Through music they share the beauty of their cultures and incorporate both traditional Indigenous and western instruments. This interactive show features original songs, thought-provoking stories and an introduction to Canada’s History, present and future from an Indigenous perspective. Older audiences will also learn about realities that Inuit and Indigenous people face today and historical moments that led to a changed way of life, through stories and songs.

About Chelsey June

Lead Vocal and Songwriter

Chelsey June has been capturing the hearts of audiences with her soulful voice and unique songwriting skills. Chelsey grew up in Ottawa/Gatineau with her mother who was from Maniwaki she spent her childhood surrounded by music, it was this early introduction to a wide variety of songs that helped shape her unique sound and style. She is a proud métis woman and is an advocate for mental health, healthy relationships, and sober living. Chelsey June is the lead female voice/songwriter for Multi-award winning, chart-topping Indigenous folk artists Twin Flames. The husband and wife duo of Chelsey June, métis (Algonquin Cree) from Ottawa, and Jaaji, Inuk and Mohawk from Nunavik, are long celebrated for their sonic landscapes spanning Canada and the Arctic, and honouring their ancestors through song in English, Inuttitut and French.

Before combining their talents under the title of Twin Flames, Chelsey June and Jaaji had their own respective award-winning and nominated careers; they met on-set during the filming of APTN’s TAM (Talent Autochtones Musical) She released her first album “Seize the day” in 2013 and her EP “Finding me” which was nominated best Folk album at the 2015 Indigenous music awards and the debut album Jaaji & Chelsey June Twin Flames in 2015.

About Jaaji

PRONOUNCED: Yaah Yee
Lead Vocal and Songwriter

 Jaaji is an Inuit name derived from the English name George. Jaaji grew up in a humble little community called Quaqtaq in Northern Nunavik where he was raised by his Grandparents with the Traditional ways of the Inuit. Many of his influence in songwriting depict life on the land. Jaaji spent his summers as a child with his biological father in Kahnawake, a reserve of the traditionally Iroquoian-speaking Mohawk nation on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. He was raised in two different worlds and cultures. He is an advocate for language revitalization and preservation, passionate about including the Inuttitut language in his songs.

A former police officer in Canada’s Arctic it was only in 2014 that Jaaji decided to commit to music full time and see where it would take him. With his first Album Nunaga he won Indigenous Album of the year at 2015 Indigenous music awards. Jaaji is the lead Male voice and songwriter for the Multi-award winning, chart-topping Indigenous folk artists Twin Flames. The husband and wife duo made up of Chelsey June, métis (Algonquin Cree) from Ottawa, and Jaaji, Inuk and Mohawk from Nunavik, are long celebrated for their sonic landscapes spanning Canada and the Arctic, and honouring their ancestors through song in English, Inuttitut and French.

Sponsored by the Mamidosewin Centre.