Newfoundland, meet Africa: St. John's festival showcases diverse culture, community
CBC
When Naval Sarr moved to Newfoundland, he noticed a pattern.
All the immigrants and African descendants he came across told him the same thing. We want to leave, they said, for somewhere like Toronto or Montreal, where robust multicultural communities could welcome them.
"They didn't want to stay in St John's," Sarr said in an interview Friday. "They said they didn't feel [at] home."
So Sarr took the opportunity to bring home to them, founding a music festival now in its fourth year.
Sarr had repeatedly heard complaints about the lack of activities and events to represent African cultures in the province. "OK," he recalls thinking, "let's do something."
Newfoundland and African cultures, he says, both share a deep love of traditional music: the perfect way to "build a bridge" between the African community here and Newfoundlanders.
"Africa by definition is multicultural," Sarr said. "You can have white Africans in South Africa, you can have Indian Africans, you can have Chinese Africans.
"It's a big continent and very, very diverse"
The St. John's African Roots Festival launched in 2019, coming back in full force this year after curtailed COVID-19 celebrations.
This weekend, musicians and dancers perform all day at Bannerman Park, offering a varied array African arts to visitors.
Sarr says he hopes the gesture brings a slice of home to those who've moved here from Africa -- and showcases what the continent has to offer for those who've never been.
"Newfoundlanders are very nice and they want to talk to us, but they know almost nothing about our culture or background," Sarr said.
Merging those cultures, he says?
"It's a way to better live together."
Aggressive patients and lack of security are making nurses feel unsafe in a rural Western Manitoba emergency union, says the Manitoba Nurses Union.
Saskatoon resident Delynne Bortis knew her commute to work Tuesday morning would be particularly difficult.
WARNING: This story contains details of abuse and intimate partner violence:
The amount of money it takes for people to earn a living wage has increased across the province, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The new owner of Ontario steelmaker Stelco says his company "will not disappoint the people of Hamilton and Nanticoke," where the business's major facilities are based.
A Winnipegger is warning others about an intricate scam she says she almost fell for.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.