By Sydnee Walcott

While killing two birds with one stone is challenging for some, one woman is defying those odds. 

Karen Samuels moved to Canada from Jamaica at the age of three. At a young age, it wouldn’t have been easy for her to describe the transition from one country to another. However, as an adult, she now views the transition as confusing.

Samuels had these feelings, because she felt she was losing her two central male role models present in her life. These two role models were her father and her late grandfather. Although she moved to Canada with her grandmother, she moved in with her mother, who had left her when she was six months old. This change made her feel like she was losing her grandmother as well.

Samuels describes she felt pushed towards having a relationship with a woman who was supposed to be a mother to her. Unfortunately, Samuels’s mother was never a mother to her. She never felt any love from her, and the love disappeared the moment she met her.

Samuels became a victim of colorism and featurism at the hands of her mother, and it played a role in her struggles with mental health. She knew there was a mental health issue when she was eight. However, she didn’t fully realize it until she turned 46.

Anxiety was the first mental health issue Samuels experienced. She would forget where she was and what she was doing. From there, it led to confusion because she didn’t talk about her issues with anger, lack of self-love, wanting to be someone else, and thinking she wasn’t worthy enough – all of this because of the lack of a mother’s love.

Years of professional therapy and understanding that it’s normal to find help is how Samuels overcame her struggles with mental health. She also uses her passions to help deal with her mental health struggles: staying physically active, maintaining an organized space, and music are some of her passions, and the ability to self-reflect has become a life changer for her. Cleaning helps her declutter the negative thoughts she has in her head. Going to the gym helps her release feelings. The most important one will be for her to acknowledge a problem and what she can do to overcome it.

The biggest thing she has done as a mental health advocate was to put herself on a platform and showcase relatability. Through this, Samuels has shown that not everyone who suffers from mental issues has an addiction or is incapable of moving past it.

She did not have any advocacy for mental health when growing up, so Samuels advocates for individuals who are dealing with mental health challenges; something that she wished would have been done for her when she was growing up.

“I had a lot of misconceptions on what anything mental meant,” said Samuels. She said there would be a lot of negative labels and stigmas she did not want to be associated with, and upon realization that these misconceptions were false, Samuels put herself out there for others to be able to see that anything was possible, it just took working on yourself. 

“We can get through this together,” she said.

Within the Black community, there is a stigma surrounding mental health. Samuels’ advice is for people to acknowledge that if something does not feel right, to deal with the feelings that come with it. Acknowledging a problem shows courage and strength. The weakness is when one hides it and doesn’t get help.

As a mental health advocate, she enjoys giving someone the courage to share their story and relate to them. Samuels would like to do more public speaking on mental health in any setting for people of all ages. She is also in the process of piecing together her story to share with the community.

As someone who grew up in the Jane and Finch area, Samuels likes to give back and prove not everyone in the neighborhood is a criminal. Her fondest memory of being in the area was feeling a sense of community. Samuels misses how everyone knew each other and looked out for one another.

“The whole community was a family,” said Samuels, “It is not something that you witness anymore.”

Samuels would like to see the Jane and Finch community revert to how it was when she was a child.

She wants more recreational options for kids besides basketball and track and field for example: horseback riding, gymnastics, and skating. “Just something different from the norm for that neighborhood,” she said.

Samuels shared with me about the time that she lost everything and ended up at a woman’s shelter. There she met other women who experienced the same issues. They were in a situation where all they needed was some help. Despite the challenges, Samuels overcame her homelessness by accepting the help she needed. Her time in a women’s shelter is what inspired her to want to give back.

The first giveback happened in December 2021 at the Driftwood Community Centre. She raised $7,500 for: gift cards, food, and clothing. Last year’s giveback happened at the Jane and Finch Mall and raised over $12,000. Samuels also volunteers with: Seva Food Bank, Young Bosses in Business, and Peel and Toronto Police.

It is important that we as a community recognize the work of someone like Karen Samuels; it is heroines like her that keep our community together.

By  Sydnee Walcott

In an industry where there are not too many people of colour, one empowered woman is taking the correct steps toward standing out. Chibie Louis-Okoye is a thought-provoking Nigerian Canadian film producer who has received many accolades throughout her career.

Born and raised in Nigeria, Louis-Okoye’s upbringing had its good and bad moments, but she was happy for the most part and provided with everything she needed. Her parents encouraged her and her siblings to go to school and take on a professional path that would lead to a career with a stable income and go on to have a family.

“My parents worked very hard to take us to the best schools they could take us to,” said Louis-Okoye, whose parents wanted both her and her siblings to become something great in the future. Louis-Okoye studied at the University of Windsor as an international student, where she received a Degree in Communication. Afterward, she went to Queen’s University, where she studied innovation and entrepreneurship.

Her inspiration to be a film producer came from wanting to take back the power to create worlds and stories that can influence pop culture and people’s perspectives on how they see things on subjects they don’t know. With a gap in the content of African stories, Louis-Okoye realized the industry needs producers and storytellers to help close the gap. “Producing is all about honing the business side of the creative,” said Louis-Okoye, whose goal is to centre the African diaspora on the world stage through her company COLO Studios.

What Louis-Okoye enjoys the most about producing is the transformation of raw ideas into materialized content.  Yes of course there are other elements of her work that she enjoys (hiring a team, and raising funds), but her heart remains with the creative process. She describes it as making a dream come true. “I believe a film is a tool for activism,” said Louis-Okoye. Activism, politics, spirituality, the monarchy, and the impact of colonialism are some of the thought-provoking content people can find in films and television series produced by Louis-Okoye.

Her latest film, KOFA, is inspired by how the world has moved on after kidnappings in Nigeria and surrounding areas. The film also focuses on how it remains precarious in Nigeria.  KOFA (Louis-Okoye’s favourite project to date) is a psychological thriller that deals with people being locked in a room and waking up nude with no memories.

From the beginning, the plot beckons the watcher to question every character, understand motive, and question what will happen next. With elements of betrayal and finger pointing the film keeps viewers intrigued as they watch the group try to figure out how they ended up where they were. Throughout their drama, a male character continuously enters the room and takes them out one by one. Scared for their lives, the group tries to piece together their memories.

Louis-Okoye loves those topics, because she feels the viewers can put themselves in the character’s shoes and feel their emotions and what’s at stake for them. She describes this as a human condition, because sometimes people may feel trapped. It may not feel like a physical trap in a room, but it can be a physical trap in a career they don’t love and are only doing for economic purposes. “People can feel trapped mentally as well.” Louis-Okoye shared.

KOFA won the Best Feature Film at the African International Film Festival, and received two African Magic Viewer Choice Awards nominations. The film’s trailer also received an award for the best trailer in the African region at the 2023 World Trailer Awards in Portugal.

Louis-Okoye’s current project is a television series called The Third Coming, and she’s having the time of her life on the project. The series centres around what can happen if colonialism and imperialism were to come back to Africa in the present and how that would look.

Louis-Okoye would like to see her career take her back to Africa, where she can continue to tell stories relatable to Africans and have the world look at things through that lens. She also wants to collaborate with others to help tell those stories and provide a technical process for creating a film and television series. She also wants to collaborate with the greats in Hollywood and take some of their lessons and experiences. Her dream is to have COLO Studios maintain its vision of centring the African experiences on the world stage.

As Africans living in the diaspora, we have a strong, and notable impact on this planet, and creatives like Louis-Okoye are the ones who will stamp our impact in the minds of people for generations to come.

BY  Paul Junor

Black female educators have historically played a critical role in shaping the education system in the United States and right here in Canada. Despite facing systemic obstacles such as racism, sexism, and discrimination, Black female educators have persisted in advocating for equitable and accessible education for all students.

Our Woman Empowered has made significant contributions in areas such as: curriculum development, teaching practices, and educational leadership. She has helped to challenge traditional models of education and promote culturally responsive teaching that values and incorporates the diverse experiences of all students.

Dr. Andrea Davis has excelled on many levels in the academic world of one of Canada’s largest universities, most notably as a Professor in the Department of Humanities, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University where she has tenured since July 2022. 

Prior to that, she was an Associate Professor, and played an active role in the development of the Faculty Anti-Black Racism Strategy where she provided leadership in an advisory role. Her ground-breaking and revolutionary scholarly work is grounded within an anti-racist feminist framework that seeks answers to questions of race and gender through an analysis of the literary and cultural production of Black women.

 Professor Davis is the author of two books. The first book, “Horizon, Sea. Sound: Caribbean and Africa Women’s Cultural Critiques of Nation,” was launched on April 21^st, 2022, at Wychwood Barnes and published by Northwestern University Press. 

The second provocative book imagines new reciprocal relationships among Black, Indigenous, and other racialized women, and offers new reflections on the relationships between the Caribbean and Canada.

 Dr. Davis has received widespread accolades and praise for the Black Canadian Studies Certificate, which she established and coordinated. She describes it as “A stand-alone,direct entry option for anyone wishing to come back to university for a year.”

She serves as co-editor of the Journal of Canadian Studies and was the former Chair of the Department of Humanities and academic colleague on the Council of Ontario Universities. In addition, she was the former interim director of the Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean ( CERLAC). She earned her doctorate in English Language and Literature at York University, her thesis was, “Hegemony of the Spirit: Black Women’s Diasporic “Counterculture of Modernity in Selected African Caribbean and African American Writing.”

 In an article for the online York University magazine that describes the upcoming Congress 2023 she reflects on the importance of the theme, “Reckonings and Re-imaginings” with respect to how it forces us to think deeply, especially after George Floyd’s death in 2021. The announcement of York University hosting Congress 2023 and Dr Davis’s role was issued in a press release on November 9^th, 2021, by Rhonda Lenton, President and Vice-Chancellor of the university.

 She states, “We cannot simply pretend that our world has not been shaken – if not altered – in some fundamental way by the events of the last three years. I don’t think York could host a Congress that didn’t attempt to address some of these questions. Universities, their students and graduates, writers and thinkers have a responsibility to attend these lessons, to decipher what they have taught us, and to offer our societies a language, a grammar, for thinking  through and beyond the crises of our times.”

 Congress 2023 will take place between May 27^th, 2023 to June 2^nd, 2023 at York’s Keele and Glendon campuses, and will have more than 10,000 scholars, graduate students and practitioners in the humanities and social science, and participants from 67 academic disciplines.

 She would like each attendee at Congress 2023 to think deeply about what has been learned since that fateful event in 2021 and what it means in a social, political and historical sense.

She emphasizes, “What might it mean for us to commit to knowing and caring for each other across our differences, understanding that the world we want to live in tomorrow is dependent on the action we take together.”

It is hoped that the congress will help to amplify York University Academic Plan 2020- 2025 with six priorities that focus on an aspect of positive change.

This is a blueprint for action that will reflect the university’s involvement in incorporating the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Great days are ahead for York University, and our world is brighter because of great minds like that of Dr. Andrea Davis.