It was a pleasure to join Dwania Peele’s Amplify Your Biz Summit, following her appearance on our Leading by Association podcast last year. The conversation on business finance and funding felt especially timely in a landmark year for Black communities in Canada.
This February marks 30 years of federally recognized Black History Month celebrated this year under the theme “Honouring Black Brilliance Across Generations: From Nation Builders to Tomorrow’s Visionaries.” At Generation1.ca, our AfroRise Fellowship of Movers and Arrivers pays tribute to African futures in 2050 and beyond, as diaspora immigrants imagine their role in shaping the continent’s next chapters. Be on the lookout for Our Dreams for Africa, our anthology launching this month. It is an exciting voyage emerging from our diaspora storytelling circles.
It was also meaningful to speak with Canada’s Federal Minister of Women and Gender Equality and Secretary of State for Small Business and Tourism, herself a second-generation Filipino-Canadian (the first in the federal government cabinet) with a multi-generational migration story of her parents moving from the Philippines to Zambia and then later on to Canada. It was a warm reminder of how deeply diasporic journeys shape leadership in Canda, US and across the Americas, and a conscious recap of key differences in challenges and opportunities faced between first and second-generation immigrants.
We are proud to spotlight the growing impact of immigrant diasporas in Canada. African-born individuals now represent 16% of recent immigrants (Statistics Canada, 2021), making them the second-largest group of newcomers after those from Asia and the Middle East. Their contributions across entrepreneurship, culture, education, civic leadership, and innovation continue to strengthen and enrich society.
