Launch of Black Seed Program aims to improve Black youth employment in Canada

BY PAUL JUNOR

There have been reports over the years that have highlighted the high unemployment rate among Black youth in Canada. This has promoted federal, municipal, and provincial governments to take attention to address this problem.

On Tuesday, February 14^th, 2023, the Canada Council for Youth Prosperity (CCYP) revealed the launch of a new program titled “Black Seed” that is geared to tackle the issue of youth employment among Black youth in Canada.

According to the website https://www.ccypj.org, CCYP is directly involved in supporting youth workers. It aims to identify and address gaps preventing all young people living in Canada from working and living in purpose and prosperity.

Some of the facts that CCYP released from the 2021 Canadian Census show that:

• Black youth experience a higher unemployment rate compared to non-Black peers
• Black youth with a bachelor’s degree had a lower unemployment rate compared to those with a high school diploma. However, the unemployment rate for Black youth with a bachelor’s degree was comparable to White youth with a high school diploma
• The number of Black youth grew by 23% from 2016 to 2021
• 1-in 17 youth are Black, up from 1-in-25 in 2016
• 4% of Black youth are temporary workers, international students or refugees
• 6% were born in Canada

Black Seed results from a partnership with the Network for the Advancement of Black Communities (NABC) and CEE Centre for Young Black Professionals. Black Seed works with: Black-led, Black focused and Black-serving (B3) organizations with culturally informed and culturally safe standards of practice for working with Black youth and addressing their unique needs. Black Seed was developed with the help of Black-led organizations, which have a history of positive work and engagement of Black youth.

It is through the Strength in Structure (SiS) project, whose mission is to improve the in-service experience and programmatic outcomes of Black youth, that Black Seed was born. The SiS project was intended to tackle systemic racism, especially anti-Black racism, and help Black youth make progress in the world of work. It was largely due to recommendations from youth participants in this predecessor program and B3 organizations that ideas were developed to improve the youth/service provider ecosystem.

It is from the findings of the SiS project that Black Seed will be able to do the following:

• Provide B3 service providers with timely and relevant information through a toolkit to help them better meet the needs of Black youth
• Identify the challenges B3 organizations face in having conversations with youth about racism at work
• Work with B3 organizations to help find new solutions to help Black youth and identify the coaching needed to effect change

Christopher Duff, Executive Director of CCYP is excited about the launch of Black Seed and the involvement of its two partners. He states,

“With Black Seed, we are thrilled to be meeting Black Canadian youth where they are with highly impactful, original solutions to make tangible changes to how our young people navigate the workforce. We are intentional about ensuring that B3s can scale up, particularly as we contend with how challenging the pandemic has been for Canada’s Black communities.

We are equally grateful to our program partners, as well as our own team for their: research, diligence, collaboration, and, most of all, their passion, to bring us to this important moment for Black Canadian youth to break the cycle of systemic challenges, and deliver better employment outcomes, which will have meaningful impacts for Canada overall.”

Anyone interested in learning about the Black Seed program and the Youth Engagement Toolkit can download it from https://www.ccpj.org/black-seed.