I believe there is no better tool to building the compassion required to address the problems in our modern world than cross-cultural empathy. I am a woman of a White mother, Black and Mi’kmaq father and a direct descendant of Black Loyalists. As a multiracial individual, I am passionate about creating experiences and public commemorations centred around BIPOC history and culture. In February 2020, the month after the passing of my paternal grandfather, I organized the inaugural raising of the Pan-African flag in New Brunswick to commemorate Black History Month. In 2021, the Pan-African flag-raising was expanded to impact and engage communities across New Brunswick.

I am drawn towards creating opportunities for the community to participate in cultural appreciation, to provoke deeper questions of one another and to build cross-cultural empathy. So far these interests and values have been met with open arms in the communities I work within. Our company, Sankara, allows me to actively express these values onto our wider community and witness them reach back excitedly for more.

Our social enterprise, Sankara, is built of these passions and values. Sankara is a social enterprise which runs an online multicultural marketplace (www.sankaracuisine.com) to buy and sell authentic cultural cuisines, grocery, arts and crafts by local cultural vendors. We’re a collective of independent cultural chefs, restaurants, grocers, and artisans who plant roots in our communities by sharing our culture. We’re on a mission to build more culturally empathetic communities by making products by diverse vendors more accessible and more celebrated.

Our marketplace bridges cultural gaps and allows people from different cultural backgrounds to experience each other’s worlds. We work with BIPOC-identifying vendors to build their capacity and increase awareness and sales of their products and services. Some of our past offline community-building initiatives include events like two dozen pop-up restaurants featuring our partner Chefs, art installations, travel storytelling evenings, and Chef-led cooking classes.

We’re a Black, Indigenous, Immigrant and Woman-owned mission-driven company who are unapologetic and bold.