By Annette Walker, Janelle Brady and Shawnee Hardware
This article serves as a follow up to our recent opinion editorial published in the Toronto Star pertaining to the various leadership roles of black youth in the GTA.
We are writing in response to what the older generation of Jamaican activists have stated, that there are not enough youth activists ready to take on the torch.
We openly acknowledge that even after our original article has been published, none of the established leaders contacted us for further dialogue.
Might we add that there is an impressive group of emerging leaders who not only work for the community’s marginalized youth, but with them.
In this piece, we want to call Jamaican youth leaders as well as youth interested in civic and community engagement to unite for the betterment of Jamaican youth in the GTA.
We strongly believe that unity is needed to dismantle the systemic and institutional racism that has blocked diasporic Jamaican youth’s success. The present realities of us working in isolation and competing for scarce resources reinforce the divide and conquer ideology, which has marginalized many of our youth.
We envision that the newly established Jamaican Canadian Youth Council (JCYC), a youth-led organization will fulfill the role of supporting collaboration among the various youth-led groups.
To reiterate, the JCYC aims to empower, mobilize and motivate young people across Ontario to collaboratively work toward creating programs to generate change. The group comprises of diasporic Jamaican youth whose work, as well as experience, has made us acutely aware of the different plights facing Jamaican youth in areas of educational and employment, opportunities.
We are also aware that Jamaican youth are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. As such, we are working alongside members of our community to address these issues.
Plenty of communities have come together collectively to address issues that are unique to them. Seeing that the Jamaican youth diaspora has a plethora of youth activists, we are calling on these Jamaican young activists to come together as a collective to discuss some of the issues highlighted in this article and determine some deep-level changes.
To view the original article published in the Toronto star visit http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2015/03/21/searching-for-torontos-next-generation-of-black-leaders.html
To view the response published in the Toronto Star by Annette, Janelle and Shawnee visit http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2015/04/21/time-for-a-new-kind-of-black-activism-in-toronto.html
Should you want to contact us to continue this dialogue, please contact Janelle, Annette, and Shawnee at info@downsviewadvocate.ca