ACOMI has spent the last 20 years helping to build a sense of community for people of African descent in Manitoba. Over this time, we have worked to ensure that our community has the capacity to help build Manitoba’s cultural and economic landscape through programs and projects like the Africa Pavilion, Ebola Awareness, and All that Kids Can Be. By building safe spaces for African-Canadians to share their story while developing their voices in Canada, ACOMI is providing people of African descent in Manitoba with the opportunity to meaningfully participate in their community through the celebration of culture and the mentorship and guidance of established leaders in our community.
As we look to the next decade of ACOMI and beyond, we want to continue to highlight the importance of finding ways for individuals to meaningfully participate in the traditions and celebration of their culture no matter where they are in the world. We want to continue to support our community in navigating what it means to call Canada home while still being able to freely engage in, demonstrate, and embrace what it means to be African. This is the capacity of the African Communities of Manitoba – to better support the needs of African-descended people in the province by acting on our vision and mission to unite people cross-culturally, to empower them to learn from and teach others, and to live each day with purpose. This is the way in which ACOMI’s role in Manitoba can sustainably impact and elevate our province.
That is why this year, we are launching the ACOMI, I Belong initiative. This initiative is geared towards helping ACOMI build its internal capacity for the benefit of the community. I Belong will work to activate the African community in a way that speaks to the current needs of people of African descent in Manitoba. Through I Belong, ACOMI is connecting with new partners and is working to galvanize supporters and community members at the intersection of their needs.
We have brought together a team of leaders from across Manitoba to help bring ACOMI into the future. As we continue to work towards developing internal processes and structures, I Belong will help to bring in the much-needed resources to maintain these structures and create a sustainable future for ACOMI. Through this, we will be able to better provide services throughout the community and better advocate for a Manitoba where all members of the community feel as though they belong here too.
This year we are actively seeking your support to help ACOMI restructure our programs to better meet the needs of our community and support the economic prosperity of Manitoba by growing our youth programs that we anticipate will help to keep dozens of our youth out of gangs and involved in the traditions of their culture. We want to rebuild our libraries and databases to offer public information for where community members can have access to the products and businesses that respond to their unique tastes. We want to support our emerging leaders by building a roster of mentors and service providers across sectors that share their experiences and can support them as they look for jobs, mental health services, educational programming, and care centres. At ACOMI we want to increase collaborative opportunities across organizations that are serving African-descended people to better achieve these goals and better serve a population that is looking to more meaningfully belong. At ACOMI, we want everyone who accesses our services to be able to say, “I Belong here” and with your support we can accomplish this.