All posts on November 14th, 2024

This weekend the Montreal Vegan Festival kicks off, featuring vibrant flavours, meaningful discussions and innovative vegan experiences from across the globe. This year’s festival welcomes Lloyd Rose as the spokesperson—a homegrown Montreal talent whose culinary platform has earned him over 810k followers on Instagram. Known for his unique blend of Caribbean and vegan flavours, Lloyd is soon to release his second cookbook, Island Vegan: 75 Flavourful Recipes from the Caribbean. Speaking with the CONTACT, Lloyd shared his journey to veganism, revealing that a documentary seven years ago led him to go vegan overnight. “I grew up eating a lot of …

Desirée Zagbai (Local Journalism Initiative) Almost a decade after his passing, Stanley G. Grizzle’s legacy continues to live on. The Black Community Resource Centre (BCRC) has launched a new podcast project, persisting to tell stories that matter to people of colour. The podcast is a tribute to Grizzle’s accomplishments and highlights his work as a Black sleeping car porter. The BCRC is a non-profit organization that helps the Black anglophone community achieve its dreams and reach its full potential. Black anglophones in Quebec between 15 to 35, can become a podcast recruit. They will engage with Grizzle’s excerpts for 12 …

Edwin Ayoung, better known as Crazy, was born in 1944 at Maraval Road, Port of Spain, Trinidad, one of eleven children to a Chinese Trinidadian father and an Afro-Venezuelan mother. Whenever we speak of the greatest proponents of the calypso art-form, his name is almost rarely brought up. I think it should be. So I decided to show the man some respect and appreciation as Crazy can also be credited with creating the parang soca genre, and helping to popularize chutney soca with his 1989 hit , Nani Wine. Yes! Crazy was the first artist to sing a “Parang Soca” …

Esmeralda M.A. Thornhill Launched in October 2023, the Dr. Esmeralda Thornhill Black Feminist Speaker Series each year brings to the Simone de Beauvoir Institute, to Concordia University, and to Montreal, Black scholars, researchers, artists, Community organizers, and/or Agents of Change whose work on Black feminism centers, theorizes, and problematizes Black Women’s reality. Last October 10, 2024, this Black Feminist Speaker Series welcomed to its platform the first invited speaker – professor, anthropologist and filmmaker, Dr. Aida Esther Bueno Sarduy, who delivered a mind-gripping presentation that kept a packed audience riveted in rapt attention at Montreal’s Afromusée venue. Speaking to her …

The other day, I was thinking, what would my life look like if I did everything I wanted to do? Have you ever taken the time to ask yourself “what if”? What if you took the time to really get to know yourself and discover what you want out of life? What if you allowed yourself to love and be loved? What if you embraced the present moment and enjoyed your life now? What if you were truly honest with yourself? What if you were more vulnerable? What if you trusted God with your whole heart? What if you decided …

We are only a few weeks away from the month of December and the heart of the Christmas season, or as Caribbean people may say “Parang Season”. However, Soca lovers have been web searching for new Soca music for the 2025 Trinidad and Tobago Carnival since after the Miami Carnival and only has a few weeks left before Parang season kicks in. That’s why most Montreal Soca lovers are looking for their end of year Soca fix. I suggest that they stay tune to Soca Sessions on CKUT 90.3fm and attend the last all Soca event of the year called …

Dr. Alwin Spence It is no use pretending and distancing ourselves from the all-important ‘one of a kind’ election in the United States. Yes, as our neighbour to the south, Canada has a vested interest in its outcome. The U.S. is Canada’s biggest trading partner. The many polls have been showing that there is a neck and neck race between the two parties, namely the Republican (the Trump party) and the Democratic Party led by Vice President Kamala Harris, who is a woman and Black. I am but an observer of this election, and I am far away in Canada, …

I was invited to do a presentation to a group of lovely ladies several weeks ago and one of the questions they had was about detoxification. It was a topic of interest for many of them, and they are not alone. Why? Detox programs have gained in popularity over the past several years, especially to lose weight. I’m not surprised that people want to learn more about it. As such, I decided to focus on it in this article. Wondering what detoxification (aka full-body detox) is about? Detox diets, generally very restrictive, purport to eliminate toxins from the body and …

Everyone seems to want to tell parents what they feel is the correct way to raise children, while at the same time telling them every child is different. Far too many of us are being told that small children just out of diapers need to be independent, make choices, and have authority. We want our children to be organized and aware of their surroundings, yet we hesitate when it comes to consistent responsibility and expectations because we do not want to “stress them out”. Parents are extremely careful about applying the logic of “you can do good in school and …