Centretown’s Taggart YMCA Newcomer Information Centre hosted a Black History Month celebration on Feb. 26 that highlighted the importance of support services for immigrants, as well as the importance of celebrating achievements of the black community.
The event featured keynote speakers Adrian Harewood, news anchor for CBC News Ottawa and CBC News Late Night, as well as his father, John Harewood, an immigrant from Barbados who is a member of the Black Canadian Scholarship Fund.
The Newcomer Information Centre serves as Ottawa’s central orientation hub for incoming immigrants. Offering research opportunities, information about housing and employment and reaching out to various communities, the centre has been in operation since 2007.
The celebration featured performances by musicians and dance groups, including a traditional dance from the Ngoma of Africa Dance Troupe, and a performance by the Hamid Ayoub Drumming Ensemble.
A stirring rendition of Oscar Peterson’s, Hymn to Freedom was performed by local singer Angelique Francis, who wrapped up her performance by stating that Black History Month “shouldn’t be celebrated only once a year, it should be celebrated every single day of our lives.”
While the turnout for the event wasn’t huge, Tanya Mendes-Gagnon, director of newcomer services at the Argyle Avenue centre, says it drew “about 75 key members of the black community who really have a lot of influence within the black community, and who really want to make a difference.”
Mendes-Gagnon says the centre strives to create a two-way conversation between newcomers and the surrounding communities. “We have an obligation to not only educate newcomers, but to educate the communities that are receiving these newcomers,” she says. “It’s not all on the newcomers back to meet their neighbours and go out and understand our culture. It’s the other way around as well, to understand the journey of your neighbour.”
Adrian Harewood stressed the importance of Black History Month and how it should be both a celebration and “a month to do some serious work, to identify the gaps in our community.”
He touched on what it means to be Canadian, how it is “about recognizing the people around us as equally human.”
John Harewood said he and other members of the scholarship fund are typically asked by various schools and institutions to deliver talks during Black History Month.
The scholarship fund provides scholarships for black Canadians entering university. But speaking at the YMCA is a particularly important opportunity, John Harewood said. “It gives us the opportunity to expose, to inform people about black history and to reach a wide audience; which is good, because we want the community as a whole to be informed about the contribution of blacks to Canadian society.”
He added: “One of our major objectives is that young people who hear about the exploits of blacks will themselves have the incentive to go forward and achieve even more than these people have achieved.”
The elder Harewood spoke about his transition from growing up in Barbados to studying at the University of Toronto.
Describing his experiences as a young black student in a new country, he emphasized the importance of immigrants having a support system and access to information in their new home – something that the NIC and the YMCA provide.
“Information is strength, information is empowerment,” he said. “If you know something, no one can take it out of your head.”