Catch da Flava Radio - Nigel Bariffe, President of Urban Alliance on Race Relations

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For this March 20th edition of Catch da Flava Youth Radio, host Travis sat down with Nigel Bariffe who is a school teacher with the Toronto District School Board and the President of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations. He is also a community organizer in Rexdale, Board member of the Rexdale Community Legal Clinic, and a member of the Good Jobs For All Coalition. He was the interim-treasurer of the Ontario Alliance of Black School Education (ONABSE) and a former Co-Chair of the African Heritage Educator’s Network (AHEN). Nigel does a lot of work on promoting quality in public education and a just society inside and outside the classroom. He is a well-known member of the community when it comes to his activism work, and he has received many awards because of it including the 2011 Urban Heroes Award, the 2012 JS Woodsworth Award and the 2014 Jack White Service Award from the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. So it was with great pride and warmth we welcomed him in studio to talk about his work.


Discussing his work, Nigel told us how important it is for us to invest in our education system. Mentioning that the federal government has recently invested millions in send troops to Mali, the same investment could have been kept in our borders to build our young minds to be the future. Coming from Rexdale, another identified “high-risk” community as Regent Park, Nigel feels a great sense of solidarity with the community and encourages us to voice our opinion and stay active in the next election this coming June. He jokes that the youth are jaded on political affairs, calling is “politricks” but he emphasizes that exercising our voice by voting is important even if we don’t think it is. We have the power to change the political landscape and consequently the way our education system can positively affect the mental health of youth. We’re like to thank Nigel Bariffe for his candid interview and for more information on the work that the Urban Alliance on Race Relations is doing, visit their website at:

https://urbanalliance.ca

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