Dear Editor:
I share the appreciation of the Afro-Caribbean community in offering congratulation to Share on its celebration of forty-six (46) years serving our community.
In your latest publication; “We have to seek our own interest as a community” (Share Vol. 46 No.13) I note your welcomed reference to the Philanthropic Endowment Fund established by the federal government. Of note in this publication also is the article by Lincoln Depradine, “Liberal gov’t. funding fight against anti-Black racism”. Both articles speak to the hand-out from government and imply the important need for our Afro-Caribbean community to find ways to benefit from these grants.
While supporting the economic, social and cultural empowerment areas to which applications have been made, I am driven to question the limitation placed on the system which informs on the history and culture of our community and the Canadian society at large.
‘Fight against anti-Black racism’ implies a reactive rather than a proactive approach to promoting our history and culture. While we in the education system have over the years advocated for the inclusiveness of Black History and cultural awareness, with support from Share, there has been marginal progress as there is still not enough being done to have changes across the system to embrace these two pillars, history and culture of who we are.
Given Share’s history, I now see an opportunity for your leadership to collaborate with leaders in our education and history community to advocate for the systemic inclusion of materials dealing with our History and Culture. Not by way of added materials to a library in an identified Afro-Caribbean community e.g. Scarborough or Jane & Finch, but all across Greater Toronto, Ontario and other provinces. We need to continue our advocacy for inclusiveness to ensure a sustained knowledge-based environment within society and thus helping to empower our Afro-Caribbean community.
Some years ago, while I volunteered with Ontario UNICEF and served as co-chair of the Education for Development Committee, we were able to publish two education resources for use across the education system in Ontario with support from UNICEF Canada to have them being used across Canada. These publications, “Children’s Literature, Toward Understanding The Caribbean,” and “The Girl Child, an Investment In The Future”, were developed as curriculum resource guides for intermediate and senior grades across Ontario’s education system.
The above concept of empowerment through education and cultural awareness is aimed not only at the Afro-Caribbean community but also the broader society to inculcate our history and culture into the framework of society at large.
Here is an opportunity for your leadership to help to guide community planners to establish in their library systems materials dealing with the history and culture of our Afro-Caribbean community. Guide applications for the grants to promote and establish relevant contents in all libraries in Ontario, and across the provincial education systems.
There are many individuals who are willing to assist any advocacy that you initiate.
Kind regards,
Dr. Hugh R. Morris, OD, JP, GG (Med. Hon.)
Toronto, Ontario
