New Impact Awards Will Make a Positive Impact on the Canadian Caribbean Community

Awards of excellence image.
Author

Anthony Joseph

Release Date

Friday, October 28, 2022

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The inaugural Impact Awards are almost ready to be unveiled to the community. Over the last year we have been working diligently to develop and produce this program that the Black and Caribbean community can be proud of.

We are doing this because we have noticed that over the years well-regarded members of our community have not been recognised in the many annual awardsceremonies designed to acknowledge the contribution of such persons. 

The Caribbean community is a vibrant one in which people of different races live together in peace and harmony, making it an example that the rest of Canada and the world could learn from.

The many races of the Caribbean region will be recognized at the Impact Awards because in this community diversity is celebrated. They will be recognized in the following areas:

ARTS & CULTURE; ENTERTAINMENT; COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION;EDUCATION; HEALTH SERVICES; SPORT ORGANIZATIONS; SPORT TEAMS AND INDIVIDUALS; MENTAL HEALTH; BUSINESSPERSON OF THE YEAR (male and female), and CARNIVAL ARTS (individual or group award).

We need to recognize our people in areas where they have been extremely successful but have not received the recognition they deserve because they do not share the “accepted” profile of what a Caribbean person looks like. The Impact Awards will change that erroneous view and stage an event an event that will celebrate the community in all its multi-coloured diversity.

The Impact Awards are produced by the Caribbean Camera and the Black Indigenous Business Development Association, two organizations that are devoted to the development of our BIPOC community. The Caribbean Camera has been serving this community for the last 32 years; celebrating our successes, reporting on our failures, and telling the stories that the mainstream media either will not touch and, if they do, they accentuate the negative aspect of their reports. 

The support we have received this year has been quite impressive. Three major organizations have stepped up to the plate to support this event: the Carpenters Union's Chris Campbell, Director of Equity Diversity & Inclusion for Carpenters' District Council of Ontario has stepped up because he knows that diversity must be recognised.

The Toronto Community Benefits Network (TCBN), lead by Executive Director Rosemarie Powell, has also come on board. Being an organization devoted to developing diversity within the workplace, the TCBN finds the Impact Awards fit their mandate perfectly. The Ontario Science Centre, where the event will be staged, has also thrown in its support behind the project. Vishnu Ramcharan, who is the head of Visitor and Community Engagement at Ontario Science Centre, has been actively involved in the development of the program and is playing an active part in preparing event participants.

Tickets go on sale this Thursday at a stores in Brampton, Mississauga, Toronto and Ajax as well as ticketgateway.com. Admission is $60.00 

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