Jaku Programs

JK Special Projects

Beyond Barriers: A Strategic, Anti-racist Approach to Building a Healthy Ottawa Region is a new Jaku Konbit project designed to tackle and prevent hate crimes and racism in the Black community with respect to African-Canadian youths between the ages of 12 and 19 years in the Ottawa Region. This project will educate Black youth on how to prevent and combat racism and hate crimes through ground-breaking and innovative training and workshops.

The Beyond Barriers initiative will provide cross-cultural communications training as well as anti-racist workshops to African-Canadian youth to help them learn more about themselves, Canadian culture and mosaic to enhance/foster/promote greater community-building through participation and inclusion.

The cross-cultural communications component of the program is designed to teach participants the value of living in a multicultural society. In addition, attendees will learn the importance of appreciating people of diverse origins, descents and how diversity is an instrumental part of Canada's growth, development and success as a nation. While emphasizing the cultural component is the main preoccupation of our cross-cultural communications training course, we intend to incorporate other types of barriers related to class, gender, sexuality because systems of oppression such as racism, for example, are interconnected.

Our anti-racism workshops will help participants deal with acts of racism being perpetrated against them, teaching them how to deal with racism in a constructive fashion which will minimize the risk of retaliation and violence in the Ottawa Region.

Beyond Barriers will work with the Ottawa Police, specifically with their youth crime and hate crimes divisions, to teach participants their rights and responsibilities under the law. The involvement of the Ottawa Police will enable youth attendees to learn the value of community policing and to also build stronger partnerships between black youth and the Police.

Beyond Barriers will essentially discuss the seriousness of racism and hate crimes and will identify unique strategies to promote cultural acceptance and diversity, the tenets of a pluralistic society.

Stay tuned for upcoming dates and times for anti-racism and cross cultural communications workshops.