When knowledge becomes our medicine

Sadine watched her teenage daughter’s face transform as they walked through the University of Toronto Schools’ foyer last Saturday. What started as polite curiosity during the Building Bridges University Fair had shifted into something deeper: recognition, possibility, hope.

“When they first arrived, they didn’t think they would have many questions,” Sadine later reflected about her youth group from CHAYIL Church in Mississauga. “After walking around and speaking with different school representatives, they became more engaged and began asking more questions.”

This transformation from passive observer to active participant in their own future is exactly what healing looks like when it comes dressed as education.

For too long, our community has carried the wound of educational gatekeeping. We have internalized the myth that higher education is not ” for us, that scholarship opportunities are too competitive, and that university life is not a space where we belong. Saturday’s fair did not just provide information; it performed surgery on those limiting beliefs.

One student discovered a child development program that completely shifted their understanding of their own interests. “The student said they had not realized they would be interested in this area until attending the event,” Ika Washington noted in her follow-up interviews. This moment represents more than career exploration; it is the healing that happens when young people are given permission to envision themselves in spaces they never knew existed.

The most powerful healing happened in the conversations about financial aid. A university representative shared that millions of dollars in scholarship funds remain untouched because students simply do not apply. “Some funding opportunities receive very few applications, even when significant money is available,” they explained. This revelation cuts straight to the heart of our generational trauma around scarcity and worthiness.

How many of our parents worked multiple jobs, believing that university was financially impossible, never knowing that scholarships existed for students who looked like us? How many dreams died not from lack of ability, but from lack of information? When our young people learn that students with averages in the eighties qualify for funding opportunities, they are not just learning about scholarships, they are healing from the lie that excellence is not expected or supported in Black bodies.

Sadine understood this healing power. “Events like this help students begin thinking about their futures before they reach the point of making major decisions,” she observed. “Knowledge is important, but being able to see and experience opportunities directly can help young people believe they can pursue them.”

This is what intergenerational healing looks like; parents and mentors creating spaces for young people to access information that was denied to previous generations. When Sadine brought her youth group to this fair, she was breaking cycles. She was saying, “The information that wasn’t available to us will be available to you.”

The students left describing themselves as: “Excited, informed, empowered, hopeful, and somewhat overwhelmed because of the amount of information shared.” That overwhelm is significant; it is the feeling of possibility expanding beyond what your nervous system is used to holding. It is healing happening in real time.

The most profound healing came from the format itself. Students appreciated the intimate setting, comparing it favourably to larger education fairs where they felt lost in the crowd. “This event felt more intimate and easier to navigate,” one student shared. When educational spaces are designed with Black students in mind, when we are centered rather than accommodated, everything changes.

The fair created what Indigenous communities call cultural safety, a space where students could ask questions without judgment, explore interests without having to perform respectability, and envision futures without first proving their worthiness.

Grace Longe’s vision for an annual Building Bridges fair represents ongoing medicine for our community. When knowledge becomes accessible, when representation is intentional, when financial barriers are addressed directly, education stops being a privilege and becomes what it should have always been, a birthright.

This is how we heal: one conversation, one scholarship application, one university tour, one young person who discovers they belong in spaces they never imagined possible. Knowledge is not just power; it is medicine for communities systematically denied access to their own possibilities.