All posts on 2020

All must see that like Covid-19, racism is treated with the same alacrity…. Another pandemic of baronial proportions currently grips Canada. Millions are unemployed, and millions more remain sheltered in the confines of their domiciles, as Covid-19 metamorphoses into an economic crisis. However, on a note of profound dolefulness many Canadians have failed to be cognizant of the fact that there has been another pandemic raging in Canada since its founding so many centuries ago. Thousands of Canadians have contracted the highly contagious virus, however in similarity akin to Covid -19 only some experience symptoms. While we struggle to find …

Gone too soon Tasha Eileen Gero-Sherwood February 22, 1983 – July 21, 2020. After a two-year battle with cancer, Tasha Gero passed away peacefully in her sleep on July 21, 2020. Tasha was the daughter of Blair Sherwood and Iris Gero Sherwood. Tasha was a faithful member of the People’s Gospel Choir of Montreal for 26 years. She was very dedicated to her family and looked forward to holidays and other occasions when she could reminisce with her cousins. Tasha will be greatly missed by the entire GERO and SHERWOOD family, all of her friends and members of the People’s …

  Rosie Awori – Local Journalism Initiative A little more than 120 days ago, the world came to a halt as governments across the globe began instituting shutdowns of various kinds in an effort to stem the frighteningly increasing number of people being infected by COVID-19 the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. The pandemic declared by the World Health Organization on March 17, remains in effect today, even as the numbers fluctuate from region to region. As governments move to slowly ease restrictions and reopen economies, it offers an opportunity to take a global look at how a virus …

Sherel Griffiths is a life-long high achiever Egbert Gaye With her newly minted degree (Master of Science Applied-Couple and Family Therapy) from McGill University and over 15 years of experience as a social worker, Sherel Griffiths, a young Montrealer of Jamaican origins, feels well-equipped to bring professional support to those who are caught in the throes of emotional crises in our community. “The truth is, the need is there because so many people in our community are dealing with what we can refer to as minority stress… the daily micro-aggression of racism,” she told the CONTACT in a recent telephone …

Rosie Awori (LJI) Africa’s gift to Canada and the soccer world He is only 20 years old but already Alphonso Davies boasts a track record that would be the envy of many soccer players. Moving to this country as a child of refugees from Liberia, no one could have anticipated that he would become Africa’s gift to Canada and to the soccer world.His time in in the Bundesliga with Bayern Munich since 2019 has seen him reach to the top of the German Bundesliga league where he was named Rookie Of The Year in his first season.His talent on the …

Measures such as social distancing, quarantine, and isolation are not enough Contact Staff With close to 57,000 people infected and more than 5,600 deaths Quebec has taken a beating at the hands of COVID-19. Montreal in particular with half the numbers of infections and fatalities has been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus. But throughout the four months of the once-in-a-live-time public health crisis, the city has for the most part been able to ride out the first wave of the virus, notwithstanding the overwhelming calamity witnessed at long-term residences. From a mid-April high of more than 800 cases a …

WIBCA’s Black Girls Gather Book Club will help young readers discover and discuss new author ROSIE AWORI (Local Journalism Initiative) Dissatisfied with the reading choices offered to them as high school students in Quebec, two young west islanders Fabiola Ngamaleu Teumeni and Mariame Toure, decided to launch a book club for 12-18 year-old girls that would introduce them to Black authors and help them explore a new world of literature. The Black Girls Gather book club is being launched out of the West Island Black Community Association (WIBCA), where Fabiola and Mariame together with a team of young women, all …

Rosie Awori (Local Journalism Initiative) The Montreal police department is undergoing a seismic shift overnight with the new street check policy unveiled on Wednesday July 8. Sylvain Caron, Montreal’s police chief announced the new policy following the findings of an independent study in fall 2019 showing that Blacks, Indigenous and other people of color were far more likely to be stopped by the SPVM. Those researchers also noted that no policy on street checks existed and suggested that the force put one in place. And although it stopped short of accusing Montreal offices of racial profiling, it strongly suggested the …