Who is she?
Sarah Onyango is a fixture on the Ottawa television and radio landscape, and a driving force in Ottawa’s Black community.
She often lends her voice, global fluency and support to telling the often forgetten stories of underrepresented communities. Onyango told Capital Current her life’s objective is “building community, by facilitating connections for the good of the wider society.”
What’s her background?
A true global nomad, Onyango was born in Nairobi, Kenya, and has lived in Tanzania, Belgium, Kenya and Canada. She moved to Canada in 1980 when her father, a diplomat, was posted here. In 2005, she says, an editor encouraged her to highlight Black stories. She chose to write the stories of Black Canadian veterans.
She told Capital Current that interviewing the veterans was a defining personal moment. “They really gave me a different view of my Black Canadian identity because that it is also what their military service gives to this country,” Onyango says. “It’s also the Black Canadian Identity.”
What is she known for in Ottawa?
After studying translation at the University of Ottawa, she became the host of the African cultural program, Fontonfrom, on Ottawa’s Cable 22. She now hosts and co-hosts on weekly radio programs such as Black on Black , a public affairs and arts show focusing on local and international events and issues, with special emphasis on the African diaspora, on CHUO 89.1FM (University of Ottawa community radio).
Onyango is also known for telling the stories and honoring the lives of Black veterans, alongside Kathy Grant, public historian and founder of Legacy Voices Institute, a national non-profit dedicated to preserving the history of Canadians and Canadian immigrants as well as their contribution to Canadian society.
Onyango supported Grant’s efforts to have Veterans Affairs Canada create Black Canadians in uniform — a proud tradition – Veterans Affairs Canada. Some of the pair’s Legacy Voices interviews are featured in an award-winning documentary, Black Liberators WWII.
“Besides telling Black stories and highlighting Black excellence, my other passion is our veterans. I love them to death, especially our Black veterans,” Onyango told Capital Current.
She also interviewed the late senator Calvin Ruck, who wrote the book The Black Battalion (1916-1920) Canada’s best kept military secret in 1987. The book details the story of the No. 2 Construction Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force, the only all-Black battalion to serve in the First World War. She went on to do several interviews with veterans. One of them was Samuel Estwick, one of the only Black airmen in the Royal Canadian Airforce in the 1940s. She describes the interaction as “humbling.”
“After interviewing him, I was like ‘me? I’ve done nothing. Thank you for your service sir’.”
What do people say about her?
“(Sarah) came to Black on Black six or seven years after I had joined the show,” said Adrienne Coddett, Onyango’s co-host on Black on Black and a friend of 30 years.
“She was a person I’d seen around campus and she was a listener of the station and show,” Coddett said. “She joined Black on Black because she saw something for herself that she could do to amplify the show. She saw a space and then did what rarely gets done — she got into action and she got involved. Sarah doesn’t just invest time, she gets involved with her full self. “
News anchor, journalist and now a Carleton University journalism professor Adrian Harewood, calls his good friend a “warrior.”
“Sarah is so consistent. I mean she’s everywhere. Did you know she lived in Belgium? She’s very worldly,” Harewood told Capital Current. “She’s someone who really boosts everyone in the community. She’s not someone who expects any rewards. She just does it because it needs to be done.”
Onyango was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012, following her work in capturing and preserving veterans’ stories.
What is something people don’t know about her?
The eldest of five siblings, Onyango was “obsessed with hurdles” when she ran track-and-field at Elmwood, an all girls’ school in Ottawa.
