A Culturally Relevant “Nobody's Perfect

A CULTURALLY RELEVANT “NOBODY’S PERFECT” PARENTING PROGRAM

FOR AFRICAN IMMIGRANT WOMEN IN CANADA

Annette Bazira-Okafor

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements

For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Social Justice Education

Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the

University of Toronto

A Culturally Relevant “Nobody’s Perfect” Parenting Program for African

Immigrant Women in Canada

Annette Bazira-Okafor

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Social Justice Education Ontario Institute for Studies in Education University of Toronto

Abstract

This study examines the curriculum and impact of The Nobody’s Perfect parenting program delivered by the Public Health Agency of Canada. Specifically, the study challenges notions of this program as an adaptable and effective model for training first time, young and immigrant mothers in parenting skills that empower both families and children. The present study highlights the program’s deeply Eurocentric and Western values and imaginations through the case of 17 African immigrant mothers whose voices and knowledge are erased and devalued by such modern Canadian parenting training schemes presuming these racialized women’s cultures backward and their childrearing experiences unusable in the Canadian context. Drawing from 17 personal interviews with immigrant women from 12 countries in Africa, the study illuminates the complex nature of the childrearing experiences of these women, shining light especially on their transnational and hybridized parenting practises informed by African and indigenous cultural values and beliefs yet already internalized parental models disseminated by

European colonialism and political domination over Africa. The analysis leads to

recommendations for ways to ground parental support in Canada in immigrant cultures thus positioning immigrant children and families for prosperity and wellbeing in Canada.

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Dedication

To my dad, Amon Kabunga Bazira (1944 – 1993), who would have been very proud to see this day. And to my mother, Mary Bayera Bazira (1946 – 1996), whose spirit continually guides me each day. Above all, I am thankful to God for making this journey possible.

Acknowledgement

This thesis is the result of so many people’s contributions who have inspired and supported me in so many ways. I am entirely grateful to the 17 women who agreed to participate in this study, taking time out to speak with me and share their lived experiences upon which this thesis is based. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I am ever so grateful to members of my thesis committee: Professor Njoki Wane who from the start was a mentor and ally, and from whom I learned so much as a great human being; and Professor Nakanyike Musisi for her enthusiasm and support as I started on this journey. I want to thank my supervisor, Professor Miglena Todorova, whose mentorship, insightful comments, and encouragement never failed to push me a step closer to completing this journey.

I am also thankful to my fellow students and colleagues in Prof. Wanes and Prof.

Todorova’s thesis groups for their support and feedback to drafts of the chapters, and to friends who have come alongside me. To my family for their love and support – my husband Obi

Okafor, and my children Oji, Mbabazi, and Kosi Okafor. To my daughter, Mbabazi, for her assistance with the reference list and formating. To my siblings and their families – Geof, Abi,

Mary, Rungi and Humuza Bazira; Solomon Nyakojo, Dan Kashagma, and James Baguma, all of whom have supported me in more ways than I can say, “thank you and God bless!” Lastly, my gratitude goes to my other family, “Grandma” (Lechi Okafor), Okey, Ada, Chi, and Ojiugo.

Thank you all.

Table of Contents Abstract ...... ii Dedication ...... iv Acknowledgement...... v List of Acronyms: ...... x Chapter 1: Introduction ...... 1 Significance of Study ...... 6 Summary of Chapters ...... 7 Chapter 2: Background to The Study ...... 10 Misalignment of the NP Program and Child Welfare Goals: Cultural Gap, Social Implications, and Impact on African Immigrant Women, Children and Youth ...... 10 Influential Players in the NP Program ...... 13 Children’s Aid Societies (CAS) ...... 15 The History of Children’s Aid Societies ...... 16 Race, Cultural Gap, and Poverty ...... 18 Race ...... 19 Poverty...... 20 Cultural Clash ...... 21 Misalignment of the NP Program ...... 22 Effects on Mental Health of Mothers ...... 25 Effects on Children ...... 28 Effects on Youth ...... 29 An African Traditional Community-Centred Approach to Child Welfare in Canada . 31 Chapter 3: Methodology and Theoretical Framework ...... 38 Methodology and Research Design ...... 38 Method...... 39 In-Depth One-On-One Semi Structured Interviews ...... 41 Limitations...... 42 Data Management ...... 43 Data Analysis and Coding Approach ...... 43 Theoretical Framework ...... 45 Chapter 4: Interview Analysis ...... 49 African Immigrant Women’s Cultural and Traditional Backgrounds ...... 49

How Racialized Women Experience the NP Program ...... 55 Eurocentricism in the NP Program ...... 56 Experiencing Parenting in Canada: Personal Narratives of Radicalized Women ...... 65 Emergent Themes ...... 67 Theme 1: Community ...... 67 NP key goal: “Community engagement and social support.” ...... 67 Child rearing in African communities ...... 69 Retaining family ties to the homeland ...... 71 NP core area: “Parental stress and coping” ...... 74 Child rearing in the African traditional setting ...... 74 Child Protection Services and Implications of Trust in Community ...... 75 Children’s Aid Societies’ impact on African immigrant and racialized communities ...... 78 Hegemonic presumptions about African immigrant and other racialized women ..... 80 Theme 2: Discipline ...... 81 NP core area: “Nurturing and discipline strategies;” cultural misunderstandings ..... 81 African cultural views of discipline ...... 82 Theme 3: Respect ...... 87 Respect for oneself as a girl and a young woman: African immigrant women’s perceptions vs. Western perceptions ...... 87 Respect for elders and other people: African immigrant women’s perspectives ...... 89 Community as vital in passing on values ...... 91 Respect for family members: African immigrant women’s perspectives on family and authority ...... 93 NP Values ...... 95 Respect in courtship and marriage: African immigrant women’s perspectives vs. Western perspectives ...... 96 Significance of community ...... 98 Theme 4: Male / Father (Un)Involvement ...... 99 Traditional and hybridized views of African immigrant women ...... 99 Chapter 5: Discussion and Recommendations ...... 102 How to Improve Programs That Target African Immigrant Women in Canada ...... 102 The Senga Model...... 102

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The First Nations NP Program ...... 103 Adapting a Modified Senga Indigenous Model to the Canadian Context ...... 104 Building Trust in the NP Program Using a Modified Senga Training Model ...... 105 NP Facilitator Training Using a Modified Senga Training Model ...... 106 The Legal System, Schools, and Building Trust in African Communities Using a Modified Senga Model ...... 110 “Traditional” Counsellors...... 112 Supports Through Community Religious Organizations ...... 113 Ontario Supports for the NP and African Communities ...... 116 NP Core Area – “Problem Solving” and Culturally Relevant Resources ...... 118 Discipline: Alternative Methods ...... 122 Male/Father (Un)involvement ...... 126 Summary ...... 127 Chapter 6: Curriculum for a Culturally Relevant and Holistic NP Parenting Program for African Immigrant Women ...... 128 Background ...... 128 Objectives of the Program ...... 128 Teaching/Learning Strategies ...... 130 A Holistic Perspective ...... 132 Defining the Role of Supporters ...... 132 Program Flexibility...... 133 Curriculum and Community Involvement ...... 133 Impact of Mainstream School System and Community Supports ...... 135 Elders and Children/Youth ...... 136 Consent in NP Classrooms ...... 137 A Holistic Approach Engaging Youth ...... 137 Course Syllabus for a Culturally Relevant Nobody’s Perfect Program for African Immigrant Women ...... 139 Chapter 7: Recalling Oral Tradition: Suggested Activities for Youth ...... 149 Background ...... 149 Visuals ...... 149 Music and Poetry ...... 150 Rap...... 150

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Suggested Teaching Activities for Younger Children ...... 150 Suggested Activities for Youth ...... 151 Chapter 8: Summary, Conclusion, and Future Directions ...... 160 References ...... 167 Appendices ...... 190 Appendix A: Published Chapter ...... 190 Indigeneity and Resistance in Hip hop and Lived Experiences of Youth of African Descent in Canada ...... 190 Appendix B: Consent For Participation in Personal Interview ...... 7 Appendix C: Preliminary Questionnaire ...... 9 Appendix D ...... 10 Interview Questionnaire ...... 10

List of Acronyms:

NHS National Household Survey

PHAC The Public Health Agency of Canada

CAS Children’s Aid Societies

NP Nobody’s Perfect Parenting Program

CMSRWG Child Maltreatment Surveillance and Research Working Group

DOJ Department of Justice Canada

OACAS Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies

GAO United States Government Accountability Office

HHS Health and Human Services

CPSCW Commission to Promote Sustainable Child Welfare in Ontario

PHN Public Health Nurse

Chapter 1: Introduction

Nobody’s Perfect (NP) is a widely used Canadian program supporting new mothers and families. Evaluation and impact studies of the program attest to its effectiveness leading to its implementation in Japan, Chile, and Mexico (Kennett, Chislett & Olver, 2012; Skrypnek &

Charchun, 2009). The program’s international diffusion is credited to the NP’s model described as a simple and adaptable approach to parenting and motherhood. However, the Public Health

Agency of Canada (PHAC), which delivers the program through provincial and territorial organizations is overlooking the growing ethno-racial and cultural diversity of Canada’s population. Hence, NP is not serving all communities and mothers equally. With the growing population of African immigrants settling in Canada, the need to provide the necessary attainment of desired parenting outcomes for the NP will require an educational program that centers not only on Western/Eurocentric beliefs, values and practices, but those of other cultures as well. Parenting, and more specifically African mothering, is significantly influenced by the broader context of societal and cultural values that are beneficial to position both mother and child for success.

Part of mothering in Canada is the wellbeing of youth. This research study also pays attention to the ways in which African youth experience growing up in Canada. Some ways youth of African descent cope is by appropriating Black popular culture through hip hop as they interrogate and make sense of their own existence within the Canadian context of race and inequality. Drawing on the lived experiences and observations of African youth and theorising their social existence, I interrogate these youth experiences in a published paper in (see appendix

1). Women’s interviews in this study speak to the concerns of mothers about their children, and how differently inflected their experiences are from their own. The study, therefore, endeavors to

include this understanding of youth experiences and mother’s experiences in a new and holistic suggested curriculum at the end of the study that incorporates these understandings.

This study endeavours to show that an NP program in Canada that is grounded in African women’s cultural knowledge and experiences is vital to empowering African families and their children by creating much needed social supports. It documents African immigrant mothers’ voices and experiences of parenting in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), while exploring an NP program that uses a culturally relevant approach to parenting. Such a culturally attuned approach, the study argues, can be empowering to African mothers and their children by building resilience, supporting children in developing a sense of history and community, as well as identities that embrace the multiple cultural influences that define the African diaspora in North

America. African mothers are often the primary caregivers and traditionally embody Indigenous knowledges from their countries of origin. African Indigenous knowledges contain sources of traditions and histories which offer critical understandings of the complex inter-weaving of society, nature, and culture (Dei, 2010). They teach the younger generation about communal belonging, responsibilities, and learning as a cooperative and collaborative undertaking. As rich sources of knowledge and values that sustain communities and validate human experiences,

Indigenous knowledges are passed on from generation to generation through oral traditions

(ibid). For purposes of this research, the word “Indigenous” is used widely to refer to local, cultural, or traditional ways of knowing.

African women’s transmission of cultural knowledge, education, teachings, and practices from their homelands give women confidence, autonomy, and pride in their identities.

Hegemonic perceptions, on the other hand, conceive African immigrant mothers as vulnerable victims, and thus undermine their political stories, complex relations, and experiences (Fellin,

2015). African mothering is discussed here as the experiences of mothers who foster Indigenous

African social values that are not present in Canadian parenting classes. It is important, however, not to essentialize all African immigrant women’s experiences. Often, lower-income African immigrant women are subject to solicitation for parenting classes and other social services in

Canada. They are also more likely to be scrutinized by the law and, therefore, forced to attend parenting classes when punitive measures are enforced. Middle-class African immigrant women, on the other hand, are more likely to attend parenting classes voluntarily and less likely to be subject to solicitation for any such social services. Factors that create differences for lower- income women and make them subject to targeting for parenting classes may include poverty, a lack of or lower levels of Western education, and language barriers (Woodgate et al., 2017).

These women, nonetheless, carry Indigenous knowledges that have sustained their families and communities for generations. While Indigenous knowledges contain social values the women deem necessary to nurture the younger generation, often African women’s cultural knowledge is negated in parenting classrooms. This act undermines African mothering by rejecting or ignoring ideas and values mothers seek to cultivate in their children. This in turn deprives youth of African descent the continuation and celebration of their cultures and values.

This research study argues that when women’s cultural knowledge is embraced in parenting classrooms, this empowers African mothers and their children to become more resilient and positioned for success in Canada. With the growing number of African immigrants in Canada, it is imperative that parenting agencies recognize the need to put in place measures that will set up

African parents and their children to succeed.

My analysis of the impact evaluation studies of the NP program found that the studies lumped all women’s experiences together, regardless of cultural background or race. My

argument shows that women of European, Asian, African, or Caribbean descent do not experience the NP program in the same way. Very little reference is made to racialized women’s experiences in the studies under topics like “multicultural issues” or “cultural and language issues” (Rootman, 1998). Likewise, few evaluations of parenting programs in Canada concern themselves with racialized women from First Nations (ibid).

Overall, the analysis presented here shows the importance of several key issues which signify gaps in the NP program, where African mothers are concerned. These issues revolve around the neglected role of community in the childrearing approach advanced by Canadian parenting programs, the issue of child “discipline,” respect for elders, and lack of father/male

(un)involvement in these programs. That last gap marking the absence of fathers in these parenting schemes extends a Western patriarchal paradigm where women solely bear the burden and responsibility for growing healthy and “good children” in the domestic realms while fathers earn power and wealth in the public economy.

The study rests upon a qualitative method of data collection and its analysis. It uses in- depth one-on-one interviews with 17 African immigrant women from 12 African countries to explore African mentoring techniques in relation to the NP program. Personal interviews are a well-established approach allowing the researcher to gain deep understanding of how a person views the world, articulates their values and beliefs and forges relationships with others, including family members. Personal interviews are useful especially in research focused on women and women’s everyday lives because these one-on-one conversations invite women to express themselves freely and share their knowledge about childrearing with another woman, in this case a female researcher who is also the mother of three children.

Furthermore, the study utilizes a curriculum assessment approach to review critically the five NP books that constitute the program’s core curriculum. Each book is dedicated to a special topic presumed to be essential to good mothering: Parenting, Mind, Behaviour, Body, and

Safety. Curriculum assessment involves analysis of the texts and pedagogical practices upon which an education program rests, paying special attention to how and if these texts and teaching techniques meet the main educational and social objectives of the curriculum. In this case, the objectives include supporting immigrant and native mothers caring for healthy Canadian children who are also productive citizens, while also integrating these individuals in social and political structures that are considered the basis of the Canadian state and society.

As an African immigrant woman and mother living in Canada, my experiences also informed this study, particularly as I have an insider’s understanding of the issues African immigrant women face in raising children in Canada. The study is further informed by my attendance of an NP class. This study poses the question, how can the NP program, through the targeting of African immigrant mothers in Canada, be improved by harnessing and deploying

African Indigenous knowledges that have been transmitted to African societies in the diaspora?

Diaspora, in this study, refers to “transnationalists,” or recent voluntary migrants from the

African continent who have left their countries as a result of displacement due to political instabilities, wars, or for economic gains, and many of whom still maintain connections with

Africa (Falola, 2013).

The analysis relies upon a theoretical framework focused on gender and race, and the ways in which they are transformed through events such as colonization, migration, and globalization of culture and capital. The study also draws upon Black feminist standpoint theories that consider culture and knowledge the outcome of a social and historical location since

women’s experiences provide knowledge that is essential for understanding parenting practices

(Hill Collins, 1991; Scott, 1992; Smith, 1987). Postcolonial and anti-colonial feminist theories seeking to “decolonize” and thus displace the “Eurocentric vantage point” as the basis of knowledge and education further inform the analytical interpretations of the parenting techniques constructed by the Nobody’s Perfect program in Canada. These theoretical lenses are developed and explained in more detail in Chapter 3 (Asante, 2001, p. 71).

I suggest and create a curriculum that is culturally relevant to support NP participants and includes Indigenous forms of leadership working alongside the NP program, in African communities, and in schools. Cultural forms of leadership built alongside parenting programs and built to support African children and youth in educational institutions can empower African communities. This is a way of working effectively across cultural boundaries.

Significance of Study

This thesis suggests a revised and culturally relevant and holistic curriculum that could empower Black immigrant families in Canada. The study thus contributes new knowledge to the existing literature on community social and educational programming. Indeed, a number of studies have evaluated the NP program in Canada (Chislett & Kennet, 2006; Kennett, Chislett &

Olver, 2012; Leskiw & Associates, 2002; Rootman et al., 1998; Skrypnek & Charchun, 2009;

Vanderplaat, 1989; Vollman, 2001). Yet, we lack more comprehensive assessments of parenting and other community programs that focus on the experiences of African immigrant women, or racialized women in general. This study supports institutions that work alongside organizations that administer the NP program. It extends research on the importance of African Indigenous knowledge in such programs as a tool of decolonization and integrations alongside the local

Indigenous struggles and epistemologies that have been central to the Canadian debates about the

destruction of colonized cultures and languages, the devalued lives and knowledge of Black and

Indigenous peoples, as well as the global aspects of postcolonial reconciliation and education. It deepens understanding about African families and communities that live within the larger Anglo-

Canadian community and culture, and that continue to practice their cultural heritage (Semali and Kincheloe, 1999). The study also adds to scholarship on the discipline of anti-racism studies, anti-colonial studies, gender studies, African studies, women’s studies, education, as well as sociology and humanities. The results of the study will enable scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners to better appreciate the possibilities and difficulties which characterize and frame attempts by African immigrant women to raise their children in a culturally meaningful and positive context that advances the socio-political and economic environment of their families and communities.

Summary of Chapters

The following chapter presents background information that grounds the study and interrogates the misalignment of child welfare goals and the values the women deem important to raising their children for success in Canada. The chapter explores ways in which a lack of cultural understanding for African women’s experiences is detrimental to the health of women and their children, affects children negatively in schools, and perpetuates a cycle of violence and homelessness for vulnerable families and communities.

Chapter Three presents the study design, research methodology and theoretical framework intended as a critical ethnographic approach to foreground structures that create and produce social inequality (May, 1997; Thomas, 1993). The chapter explains the transnational,

Black feminist, anti-racist, and anti-colonial lenses through which the NP program is interrogated.

Chapter Four reports the major findings from the persona interviews with African mothers. The analysis explores the women’s cultural and traditional backgrounds and engages women’s experience through the data collected. The chapter further relates the experiences of women to claims of the NP impact evaluation studies.

Chapter Five provides recommendations on how to implement a culturally relevant NP program that recalls African Indigenous practices that can be modified and work alongside mainstream institutions to support African women, their children, and communities.

Chapter Six recommends a culturally relevant NP curriculum for African immigrant women and incorporates a syllabus that is reflective of an African Indigenous holistic approach that involves the whole family. The syllabus includes youth activities that are further fleshed out in Chapter Seven.

Chapter Seven highlights activities for younger children and youth that are grounded in

African oral traditional practices. These include Hip hop and rap, dance, artwork, and African traditional board games, some of which can be traced back several centuries to ancient civilizations. Oral traditions were used to teach the younger generation important skills and were passed on from one generation to the next. These activities are an important tool for helping children and youth connect with their cultural heritage.

Appendix A, which precedes the research study’s bibliography, is a published paper that explains the connection between African oral traditions and their impact on African immigrant youth in Canada. The paper foregrounds Hip hop as a form of oral traditional culture that can be traced back to African griots in the 17th Century who were artisans of the word and could recite genealogies and histories of their people. This form of art was passed on from one generation to

the next and has evolved in modern ways in Africa, and was also passed on through transatlantic passages of African peoples and evolved into modern day Hip hop and rap in America.

The paper examines African immigrant Hip hop artists like K’naan who came from a long line of poets in Somalia, yet learned Hip hop culture and music in Canada and the US, which he infuses into his song Waving Flag while using the poem that his grandfather taught him as a young child in Somalia. Other artists like Shad K., also a Canadian Hip hop artist, infuses his rap song I’ll Never Understand with his mother’s poetry about the loss of family in the

Rwandan genocide. This paper lays the background for understanding how Indigenous knowledges can be empowering to youth and a form of resistance against erasure of their cultural heritage.

Chapter 2: Background to The Study

Misalignment of the NP Program and Child Welfare Goals: Cultural Gap, Social

Implications, and Impact on African Immigrant Women, Children and Youth

This chapter explores the NP program and how it is impacted by several organizations, including the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) which operates under Health Canada, and the Children’s Aid Societies (CAS) which provide child protection services under the

Ministry of Children and Youth Services (Ontario). By exploring the NP program’s history and connections through the different players that impact the program, the chapter speaks to the cultural clash and impact on African immigrant women. More specifically, it speaks to issues of systemic racism and the barriers that are created for children and families who receive services through these agencies (Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017). NP states its purpose as one that meets the needs of young, single, socially, and geographically isolated parents with low income and little formal education (PHAC, 2017). It claims to provide a non-judgmental atmosphere that encourages discussion, and create learning activities that support parents in understanding and solving their own problems (ibid). However, this chapter will show that the

NP program is built upon a Eurocentric system that overlooks the cultural values that African immigrant women hold, thereby creating a misalignment between child welfare goals and the values the women deem important in raising their children for success in Canada.

The NP program uses a series of five parenting books published by the PHAC (Jan.

2016), namely, Mind, Parents, Behaviour, Safety, and Body. The Mind book covers topics on the

“growing body and growing mind” and discusses emotions like feelings and attachment. It points out that a baby’s attachment to its parents influences how his or her brain develops, and has an effect on how he or she thinks, learns, feels and behaves for his/her whole life. The book talks

about ways in which safety, security, feeling loved, and understood can be enacted in order to foster attachment in a child. This chapter, however, shows that due to racial discrimination and cultural differences, child apprehensions often target racialized women, thereby stripping mother and child the attachment and security deemed important in a child’s developmental stage.

The Parent book deals with several topics under the umbrella headings of helping oneself and feeling good about parenting. “Parents are people” is a topic that emphasizes making time for oneself. The book places emphasis on a parent’s self esteem as well as that of the child, a parent’s attachment to the child, and talks about parents respecting one another. The NP model, however, bases its understanding of human behaviour and “mental processes” on a Eurocentric and universal standpoint without considering ways in which culture plays an important role in the thought processes, perceptions, and reasoning of the self (Geeraert, 2018).

The Safety book emphasizes injury prevention and first aid. Topics covered in the Safety book include childhood injuries, safety at every age, home safety, car seat safety, safety outdoors, and safety all year round. Safety measures discussed prescribe Canadian rules and safety regulations that may be different from other countries or do not exist in other countries, like what to do in emergencies and winter safety, and recalls on banned items. Women in this study expressed agency in the way they embrace knowledge they thought would better their lives in Canada, especially those women who attended parenting classes. They also showed a desire to retain cultural knowledge they felt advanced their successes and those of their children.

The Body book deals with the health of children, including illnesses or common concerns from allergies, coughs, vomiting, fevers, to constipation. The health section in the Body book talks about topics such as growth and development, healthy foods and snacks, and immunizations. While African immigrant women interviewed for this study appreciate learning

about the way things are done in their host country of Canada, the study reveals that their cultural values and ways of doing things are not considered in the NP classroom or included in the curricula, leaving these women voiceless and severing their identities and those of their children.

The Behaviour (PHAC, 2016) book provides information for parents to help their children learn to behave and gives them ideas for coping with some common behaviours (p.3). It provides ways to solve common problems like aggressive behaviour, fighting, sibling rivalry, and tantrums. It also touches on the topic of spanking, a controversial topic in Canada among

African immigrant groups who consider it a viable disciplinary method. The Behaviour book states that spanking models violent and aggressive behaviour, and also offers alternate solutions for both parent and child, including topics on modeling trust, empathy, and being a positive parent. Taught from a Eurocentric point of view, behaviour can only be modeled against

Canadian standards such that anything that remotely resembles White middle-class behaviour is perceived as abuse and neglect, giving child welfare agencies reason to remove a child from their parental home. White middle-class is defined here as culture characterized by a particular attitude, mindset, behaviour, and self-definition (Atkinson and Brandolini, 2013). Cultural differences, therefore, become reason to separate families and apprehend children.

Although the NP uses a series of five books, it claims to have no set curriculum, maintaining that it uses a learner-centred approach that involves parents in deciding what they learn, and alleges flexibility by complying with parents interests and needs (PHAC, 2019).

PHAC programs like the NP do provide valuable information, they are free and, therefore, available to low income families, and are in-fact embraced by African immigrant women looking to better themselves and their children. While doing good, these programs are also Eurocentric by nature and work to suppress racialized women’s cultural knowledges that they deem

unimportant to successfully raising their children in Canada. All the women interviewed for this research study identify with certain cultural values from back home that they deem important in raising their families, while embracing those values in Western societies they believe to advance their livelihood.

Influential Players in the NP Program

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC)

The NP program is owned by the PHAC and is offered across several provinces in

Canada as a community-based program for parents with children from birth to the age of five.

The NP program was originally developed in partnership with the health departments of the four

Atlantic provinces including New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and

Prince Edward Island, and was introduced at the national level in 1987 (PHAC, 2019). The provincial and territorial child protection legislation and policy (PHAC 2018) advocates for and addresses the prevention of child maltreatment. It involves governments at all levels and engages several sectors like social services, policing, justice and health. Multiple departments at the federal level have taken the initiative against family violence and child maltreatment. The PHAC along with provincial and territorial partners lead this initiative (PHAC, May 2019). In order to prevent and address child maltreatment, the federal, provincial, and territorial governments are involved in “an ongoing systematic collection of data on child abuse and neglect reported to child welfare” (ibid). Surveillance is, therefore, considered essential in “providing contexts, risk factors and types of child maltreatment” (ibid) for the purposes of informing “policy, program, service and awareness interventions” (ibid). For over two decades now, the PHAC and its provincial and territorial partners have been engaged in “maltreatment surveillance” and collaborate on “data collection, analysis, and interpretation” (ibid). Policing and surveillance of

racialized NP clients and Black youth in schools is a topic explored in the following chapter and shows how race plays a major part in surveillance methods that lead to placing racialized children into foster care.

The PHAC gathers and analyses surveillance information which it collects from several sources like “administrative data, survey data, and data gathered from proxy informants such as child welfare workers” (ibid). The Child Maltreatment Surveillance and Research Working

Group (CMSRWG) also have a mandate to offer advice to the Family Violence Surveillance

Section of PHAC on how to improve the national child maltreatment surveillance and research

(ibid). The Department of Justice Canada (DOJ) also partners with PHAC in its Family Violence

Initiative. It is responsible for the Criminal Code that involves different forms of child abuse.

DOJ officials claim to “apply a victim’s lens to all federal work” (ibid). While both the PHAC and DOJ claim to use evidence-based approaches, this research study shows that NP evaluation studies commissioned by the PHAC itself show little to no evidence-based approaches to its racialized clients, except for Indigenous groups. The PHAC’s provincial and territorial child protection legislation policy (2018) also states that “the success of collecting and analyzing data on child maltreatment depends on collaboration with provinces and territories, national

Indigenous organizations, First Nations, other government departments, experts in surveillance, researchers, and service providers” (PHAC, May 2019). However, the disproportionate numbers of Indigenous and Black children apprehended by child welfare agencies point to a disturbing reality regarding the PHAC’s surveillance policies that target Indigenous and Black children and shows its failure to protect racialized groups.

Children’s Aid Societies (CAS)

Child welfare agencies like CAS work alongside parenting programs like the NP.

Children’s Aid Societies are private and non-profit corporations (Metro News, 2014). They are regulated by the government and have the legal power to take children from their parents for reasons ranging from physical abuse to neglect. CAS agencies “have the exclusive legal responsibility to provide child protection services 365 days a year, 24 hours a day” (OACAS,

2018). They are under legislation to provide care to children who come under their supervision, offer counselling services and support to families, place children for adoption or in foster care

(OACAS, 2018). Foster care parents work on behalf of CAS to provide for a child (Ontario

Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, 2018). The Ministry of Children and

Youth Services in Ontario provides funding and monitors CAS. The ministry also “develops policies to support child welfare programs, and licenses children’s residences (group homes) and foster homes” (OACAS, 2018).

In 2018, figures from the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS) showed that there are 50 designated Children’s Aid Societies in Ontario, and 12 Indigenous

Child and Family Well-being agencies, three of which are faith based. Two are Catholic and one is Jewish (OACAS, 2018). Besides the Indigenous Children’s Aid Societies, there are none that represent other racialized groups in Ontario. OACAS is an association incorporated in 1920 that advocates on behalf of Ontario’s children, families, boards, and staff of Children’s Aid Societies that serve them (OACAS, 2018). It is an amalgamation of Children’s Aid Societies that joined together in 1912 as the Associated Children’s Aid Societies of Ontario, and later changed its name to OACAS. Over one hundred years of child protection services and eleven Indigenous

Children’s Aid Societies later, one would expect that the number of Indigenous children who are

apprehended would have dropped. On October 2017, OACAS “acknowledged and apologized for the harmful role child welfare has played historically and continues to play in the lives of

Ontario Indigenous children, families, and communities” (www.oacas.org). It has since set out to work on the nine reconciliation commitments to Indigenous communities (OACAS, 2018).

Despite some of the Indigenous Children’s Aid societies being established as early as 1907 and

1909 like those in the districts of Nipissing and Parry Sound (CAS, Nipissing and Parry Sound,

2017), Indigenous communities in Canada continue to have the highest numbers of children in care, as well as other racialised communities (CPSCW, 2012).

The History of Children’s Aid Societies

In the nineteenth century, many people in Britain and Europe saw Canada as a land of opportunity. However, when new immigrants from Europe arrived in Canada, they were not prepared for the harsh realities they faced including drought, disease, and economic depression.

This left many children abandoned on the streets, placed as apprentices, or sent to work in unsanitary conditions for lengthy periods in places like factories. Some homeless children were placed in orphanages, infant homes, or shelters where they remained until they turned 12 or 13 years old. Guardianship for these older children was transferred through an agreement or contract or by apprenticeship. In 1874, legislation was passed for charitable organizations to intervene in the maltreatment of children who were apprenticed. The province of Ontario and charitable organizations agreed on a cost-sharing relationship. In 1888, the Protection and Reformation of

Neglected Children Act was formed that “allowed the courts to make children wards of institutions and charitable organizations” (khcas.on.ca/about-us/history-of-the-kawartha- haliburton-childrens-aid-society/). The local governments would fund the costs for maintaining the wards. Foster homes also became alternatives to institutions.

In 1891, John Joseph Kelso founded the first Children’s Aid Society of Toronto and advocated for a new Act for the Prevention of Cruelty to and Better Protection of Children. The

Act was passed in 1893 and Kelso was appointed Superintendent for Neglected and Dependent

Children (ibid). Today foster homes are filled with unprecedented numbers of Indigenous and

Black children (Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2018). With the changing demographics of racialized immigrants coming into Canada, the faces of children apprehended by the 21st century

CAS have changed. The harsh realities of Canada’s 21st century racialized immigrant that include systemic racism, unemployment, economic difficulty, poverty, and cultural discrimination are at the root of CAS’ racialized child apprehensions (Fluke et al., 2003).

As settlers on Canadian land, African bodies were racialized by the dominant group of

White Anglophone settlers in Canada from early colonial times to the Second World War, as part of the project to create a nation and a national identity (Mackay, 1998). Mackay (ibid) points out that White Anglophone settlers in Canada mobilized representations of others and decided how non-British cultural groups were “managed, located, let in, excluded, made visible or invisible, represented positively or negatively, assimilated or appropriated, depending on the changing needs of nation-building” (Mackay, 1998, pp. 37-38). “These cultural groups,” Mackay explains,

“become infinitely manageable populations as well as bit players in the nationalist imaginary, always dancing to someone else’s tune” (1998, p. 62). Quayson and Dashwani also observe that

“popular sentiments linked to a sense of nationalism created along the lines of ‘common blood,’

‘dominant race’… are often used to create fear and hostility against outsiders who are seen to be

‘swarming’ into the country and changing its moral fabric” (2013, p. 15).

Racialized immigrants have been described as an invading force unable to fully integrate into the resident society and have become scapegoats for national distress. Blame is projected onto the “Other” to preserve the national self (ibid).

Race, Cultural Gap, and Poverty

Evidence shows that race, cultural misunderstandings, and neglect created by poverty, have led to children being apprehended by the CAS (Contenta et. al., 2014). This trend is similar in the United States where Black children are also apprehended in unprecedented numbers. This is despite research showing that Black families do not abuse or neglect their children at a greater rate than any other race. The Health and Human Services (HHS) National Incidence Study showed that,

since the early 1980s that children of all races and ethnicities are equally likely to be

abused or neglected; however, African American children, and to some extent other

minority children, have been significantly more likely to be represented in foster care,

according to HHS data and other research (United States Governments Accountability

Office, 2007)

Jean Samuel, the director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at OACAS points out that 90% of the children under Children’s Aid Societies are from “marginalized experiences.” According to

Jean Samuel,

Over the last 15 years many agencies have been trying to do good work with children and

youth who come from diverse experiences through the introduction of anti-oppressive

practice. Nevertheless, we still hear stories about the disparaging and inequitable services

of marginalized children and families (Samuel, J., 2019).

Race

Race is a major factor that dictates child apprehensions in the child welfare system in

Canada. Until recently, most children’s aid societies in Ontario did not collect data on race. The child welfare commission recommended the collection of “ethnic background information” as a way to assess how “agencies respond to diverse communities.” The Toronto Star (Contenta et. al., 2014) reported 31% of children in care were born to Black parents. A further 9.8% had one parent who is Black. In 2015, the Toronto Children’s Aid Society “released race-based data of the children in its care.” The 2015 data revealed that “30 percent of children in foster care were

Black, though only 8.5 percent of the city identifies that way.” Of children in care in Toronto, a recent provincial survey of about 7,000 Ontario children who have been in care for more than one year shows that about 12% are of African or Caribbean descent. Meanwhile, only about 5% of Ontario’s children under age 18 are from those communities. The data also showed that many of the Black children in care were of Jamaican heritage (Contenta et. al., 2014). Corrie Tuyl, manager of Toronto CAS’s north branch, says workers have told her about a school that called with a referral simply because a child was from Jamaica. (Contenta et. al., 2014).

The number of Black children in care moved from 30% in 2015 to 34% in 2017, while only 9% of the city of Toronto identified as Black (Globe and Mail, July 17, 2018). Furthermore, a report of the Commission to Promote Sustainable Child Welfare in Ontario (CPSCW, 2012) found that “the system was not responding effectively to the diversity of Ontario’s population”

(p. 8). Prior to 2015, little data existed in the Canadian context regarding the disproportionate numbers of Black children in care. American data was used in studies and gave “insights into the experiences of, and outcomes for, African Canadians in Ontario’s child welfare system”

(OACAS, 2015). A U.S. study (Fluke et al., 2003, pp. 359-373) examined the disproportionate

representation of race and ethnicity in child maltreatment in five states. The study affirms that once a report to a child welfare agency is made, people of African descent are investigated twice as often compared to White people, and that African-American children were overrepresented compared to “White children at each stage of an investigation in every state.”

A July 2007 report written by the United States Government Accountability Office

(GAO-07-816) to the Chairman of Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives, titled “African American Children in Foster Care,” also stated that a significantly greater proportion of African American children remain in foster care nine months longer than children of other races and ethnicities. In 2004, African American children “across the nation were more than twice as likely to enter foster care compared with White children” (GAO, 2007, p. 1).

African-American children also stay longer in foster care because it is harder to recruit adoptive parents. This is because relatives who provide foster care are unwilling to “terminate the parental rights of the child’s parents” (2007, p. i). This is likely because policies and decision makers have not taken into account that African and Indigenous groups, as well other racialized groups, may be communal. Severing family ties is an act that adheres to individualistic values prevalent among Western societies and may not align with the value systems of different racialized groups.

Poverty

Another reason identified as to why African-American children stay longer in care is due to poverty. Relatives who step in as foster parents may need the financial subsidy given to them and, therefore, continue fostering in order to keep receiving the subsidy (GAO, 2007). It appears that there is no system in place to financially support adoptive parents and the only way to get the support they need is to remain foster parents. Poverty can also be attributed to the fact that

Black people are affected in greater numbers by recession and other factors related to race like

difficulty finding employment (ibid). The American HHS (2007) study explains that the results for its study were influenced by the 2008 recession which affected Blacks more than Whites causing more strain on families. Poverty, it noted, is the strongest predictor of maltreatment rates.

Due to poverty, the affected families find it much harder to access housing, mental health services, as well as other kinds of services families need to remain stable and keep children safe in the home. The report of the Commission to Promote Sustainable Child Welfare (2012) reported inadequate housing, language barriers and poor education as factors that exacerbate the power imbalance these families experience. Furthermore, a research study of a 2001 census

(Ornstein, 2006) found that “all twenty of the poorest ethno-racial groups in Toronto CMA

[Census Metropolitan Area] are non-European” (www.yorku.ca/media). The 2018 Report on

Child Poverty in Toronto co-authored by the CAS of Toronto (Wilson, et al., 2018) revealed that children from racialized groups in Toronto experienced disproportionate rates of poverty, among them “children who are West Asian (59.5%), Arab (58.8%), Black (43.6%) and Latin American

(36.1%).” A 2011 National Household Survey also revealed that:

People of African and Middle Eastern backgrounds in Toronto are three times more

likely to be living on low incomes than are people of European backgrounds... More

specifically, 41% of people with Southern and East African backgrounds live below the

Low Income Measure, compared to only 12% of people whose backgrounds are from the

British Isles (NHS, 2011).

Cultural Clash

“Bias or cultural misunderstanding and distrust” that exist between child welfare workers and families were also found to influence the decision to remove a child from their home and put

him/her into foster care (Contenta et. al., 2014). The disproportionate representation of children in foster care identified other racialized groups including Native Americans, Hispanics, and

Asian subgroups in certain localities (CPSCW, 2012). The report of the Commission to Promote

Sustainable Child Welfare (ibid) found that there was an increased risk of misunderstandings due to cultural differences when child protection officers are called to intervene.

In 2014, the Star (Contenta et. al.) reported that groups serving the Black community were trying to bridge the cultural divide that can land children in care. Spanking, a form of discipline commonly used in Africa and Jamaica was reported as one that could lead to a surprised parent being “charged with assault.” Everton Gordon, formerly the Chief Executive of the Jamaican Canadian Association (2015-2016) and who also worked for the Toronto Catholic

CAS in the late 1990s points out that he witnessed cases where some families were investigated for yelling at their children. Parents who are confronted with a CAS worker may also become brash with the worker with statements like, “you want to tell me how to raise my kid,” says

Gordon (Contenta et. al., 2014). Often such parents are labelled as uncooperative, making the chances for a child to be removed from its parental home greater. Suspected abuse is also assessed by psychologists paid by the CAS. In such cases parents do not have a say in the matter or much opportunity to present their side of the story in court. A judge will often decide to remove a child by summary judgment, a process based on written evidence that is mainly provided by Children’s Aid Societies. “If you steal a pen, you have a right to a fair trial,” says family court lawyer Thora Espinet, “but you don’t with summary judgment” (ibid).

Misalignment of the NP Program

Although the NP program claims it is not intended for “families who are in crisis or those with serious challenges” (PHAC, 2017), PHAC funded NP evaluation studies show that parents

have been ordered by the courts to attend the program in order to get their children back from care (Rootman, 1998). These parents who are considered at-risk are perceived as hostile for a lack of motivation or interest in the program. They are labelled angry, defensive, negative, or unwilling to participate (Rootman 1998). The fact that these parents have lost their children to

CAS and are grieving does not occur to PHAC researchers (ibid) whose interview questionnaires need to be filled so the PHAC can secure funding to continue running the NP program. CASs are dependent on client numbers to run their programs. In 2013, an internal memo was leaked from the Peel Children’s Aid Society in which the management asked “staff not to close any ongoing cases during March as part of a strategy to secure government funding” (Daubs, 2013). The memo explained that “when service volume is lower than projected, there is less money for the

CAS” (ibid). An employee who would not reveal his/her identity for fear of reprisal explained to the Toronto Star reporter the damage that “wrongly opening or leaving files open” can have on “client’s lives.”

“For example, some parents are separated from their kids, some parents have to take time off work to meet with us when their files should have been closed, and some parents are unable to return home because of a false abuse claim — and all of these cases leave these families in emotional limbo… it is immoral and wrong to keep client cases open just to meet a quota. . ..

There are far-reaching implications when you have a CAS record” (Daubs, 2013).

An account of how much power CAS wields over peoples’ lives was documented in a film called Powerful as God (2011; producer: Documentary Media, MFA program, Ryerson

University). A family lawyer from Hamilton Ontario, Michael Clarke, who was interviewed for the documentary film explains CAS’s abilities compared to other government agencies in

Canada:

The CASs have enormous powers in Ontario. They have powers of search and seizure.

They have powers of taking your child and interviewing your child alone without you

being present, without a teacher being present. They have the powers to apprehend your

child, take your child away, put your child in a foster home. It’s very very significant.

There are no other government agencies that have those types of powers.

(http://www.blakout.ca/htm/viewthedoc.php#.XanTvOhKjIV)

Several people interviewed for the documentary film gave accounts of their experiences with CAS that revealed a tremendous amount of distrust, anger, frustration, and heart ache for those whose children were apprehended. One mother, “Elizabeth,” who was interviewed anonymously, and who endeavoured to speak out against the actions of CAS, had this to say: “I found that the more I’ve spoken out about the Children’s Aid Society the more they’ve gotten me to very concerted efforts to make my life more difficult and create problems between myself and my children. So, if it means silencing you somehow by using your child as a pawn…”

(Documentary film, Powerful as God, 2011).

Yet another mother, Marlene Langfeld, who is Aboriginal from Ajax, Ontario, blames

CAS for destroying her family: “… I want people to know that CAS actually destroyed my family. They didn’t help my family at all. They tore it completely apart and it’s not gonna be ever back together again, and I blame them” (Documentary film, Powerful as God, 2011).

A former respite worker, Lyndsey Cara King, at the Jewish Family and Children’s

Services, Toronto, says that she uses every opportunity she has, especially at the Jewish community center, to tell people what goes on in CASs. She says “people find it so hard to believe that a Children’s Aid Society could act maliciously. It just goes outside of what people believe. But it’s true. It’s 100 percent true” (ibid). “People expect CAS to help, and they should,”

reiterates Alfred Mamo, a family lawyer who represented CAS in the office of the Children’s lawyer and families (Powerful as God, 2011).

Effects on Mental Health of Mothers

Aside from the physical impact this violent separation has on families, the emotional trauma and its impact on mothers is also well documented. A study by Wall-Wieler et al. (2017) in Manitoba compared the outcomes on the maternal mental health of mothers whose children were taken into care and those whose children were not. The results of the study stated that “the health and social situation of mothers involved with child protection services deteriorates after their child is taken into care” (p. 1145). Wall-Wieler et al. (2017) points out that often the accused parent’s perspective is not considered and that this “narrow view” results in “a lack of acknowledgement of the effect that such separations may have on parental health, well-being and family circumstances” (p. 1145). Women have also described having a child apprehended as a

“living death” (CBC News, Nov. 4, 2017). As a way of coping with the trauma of having their child taken into care, these mothers may be driven into even more dire and self harm circumstances like taking drugs and alcohol, frequent moves, homelessness, and exposure to partner abuse, which become another barrier to getting reunited with their children (Wall-Wieler et al. 2017, p. 1145).

Wall-Wieler’s (ibid) study shows a 19% increase in depression for these women; 36% increase in anxiety; 97% increase in substance use disorders; while doctor visits increased by

6%; visits to a doctor for a specific mental illness jumped by 51%; and prescription drug use also went up by 42%. Meanwhile, Rootman’s (1998) NP evaluation study is concerned with the fact that these parents are unwilling participants in the NP program who tell you, “I have to be here, I don’t have a choice,” and spend time trying to convince you that they know the answers.

Rootman acknowledges that these parents often do know the answers, but one can sense the infuriation towards them as indicated in the following statement, “sometimes they are so angry…. that they can’t focus on parenting” (1998, p. 28). The lack of support and understanding for a grieving parent whose child has been taken away, who is simply unable to concentrate and routinely take notes and answer questions in an NP class, or even be a cheerful participant is perplexing. These parents are not seen as human but merely subjects to be manipulated.

The NP program’s claim that the program is not intended for at-risk parents appears to stand in contradiction to their goals, the reality being that parents considered at risk do attend the

NP program, likely having been ordered by the judge who thinks they lack good parenting skills.

Yet care has not been taken to make sure that parents’ needs are met with the right resources to enable them to cope with the trauma of having their child(ren) taken away. Furthermore, little empathy is accorded these parents who are forced, moulded, and fitted into PHAC’s goals and objectives. The irony is that the NP is a very strong advocate for positive parent and child attachment. Interaction and attachment are considered the basis for mind, body, and behaviour development for the child (PHAC, 2016). The NP books underscore the importance of children being able to grow into healthy adults by encouraging getting the most out of positive parent- child interactions. The NP program, however, does not seem to consider the serious damaging effects when racialized children are involved (Pediatrics, 2000).

The Toronto Star reported that social workers are a lot more lenient when dealing with

White middle-class families. On the other hand, low-income Black/African parents are reported at higher rates for anything that does not conform to middle class White families (Toronto Star,

Dec. 12, 2014). Annette Lareau’s (2002) definition of White middle class is based on the ways in which parents engage their children, and is very much dependant on social class. According

to Lareau, middle-class parents engage in “concerted cultivation” efforts to nurture their

“children’s talents through organized leisure activities and extensive reasoning.” On the other hand, "working-class and poor parents engage in the accomplishment of natural growth, providing the conditions under which children can grow but leaving leisure activities to children themselves” and “use directives rather than reasoning.” Lareau’s study, however, showed that

“race had much less impact than social class,” meaning that both White and Black middle-class children were exposed to this lifestyle, and according to Lareau, both gained “an emerging sense of entitlement from their family life. Furthermore, “differences in a cultural logic of childrearing gave parents and their children differential resources to draw on in their interactions with professionals and other adults outside the home. Middle-class children gained individually insignificant but cumulatively important advantages. Working-class and poor children did not display the same sense of entitlement or advantages” (p. 747).

Poverty is linked to race as this study demonstrates, hence the high numbers of racialized disadvantaged families and Black children in care. In 2014, Margaret Parsons, executive director of the African Canadian Legal Clinic and advocate for Ontario’s 590,000 Black residents at the time, stated that the high numbers of Black children in care indicated that the “the first approach for an African Canadian child” was apprehension and foster care (Parsons, 2014). For White middle-class families, care is often taken to provide help for the whole family so children can stay in their parental homes.

European countries which have reduced the numbers of Indigenous and Black families taken into care have been successful through the support they provide to entire families.

Brownell (2015) explains that the reason why Canada has so many kids in care lies in the approach to children’s welfare. Canada and the U.S. favour a “child safety” approach to

children’s welfare while Australia and several European countries prefer a “family welfare” approach. This means that in Canada and the U.S., if a welfare agency identifies a child at risk, that child is removed from the home and placed in foster care until the risk of abuse or neglect is resolved. In countries like Australia, however, the whole family is given intensive home support to try and remove risks while the child stays with the family. This has led to remarkable progress in reducing child poverty and family violence which have been identified as the two major risk factors for child welfare (Brownell 2015; Wall-Wieler et al., 2017).

Effects on Children

A study from the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy at the University of Manitoba

(Brownell, 2015 et. al) compared children who had been taken into care for any amount of time with children who never had any connection with child welfare. Children in kindergarten who were in care were “less likely to be ‘ready’ for school learning than those who aren’t in care”

(ibid, p.42). The findings also showed that children who had been taken in care struggled in school, and most did not complete high school. They had lower scores in math and reading assessments from grade three to high school and were more likely to have a “developmental disability, a mental disorder or to come from a poor family” (Brownell, 2015, p. 54).

The Canadian Welfare Research Portal (http://cwrp.ca/faqs) points out that many children in foster care are abused or neglected, leaving them predisposed to mental illness and developmental problems. The Vancouver Sun’s Tracy Sherlock’s series on child welfare

(Sherlock and Culbert, 2014) reveal that children in care are “almost seven times more likely to be in special education programs than all other students.” Over 40% have physical disabilities or chronic health problems, while “30% have behavioural issues or serious mental health problems”

(Sherlock and Culbert, 2014). A former foster care child, John Dunn, who later became the

executive director of the Foster Care Council of Canada reveals in an interview that he was taken from his mother at eighteen months old and lived in foster care for sixteen years in thirteen different homes. He called his predicament a “constant state of mourning” (Postmedia Network

Inc., Sept. 19, 2012).

Effects on Youth

The Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates states that “poverty is an underlying factor diminishing the realization of children’s rights and increasing their vulnerability in their everyday worlds” (Commission to Promote Sustainable Child Welfare,

2012, p. 82). When children in care are not adopted, they “age out” of the system at 16 or 17 years old, and as a result, their chances of being socially, politically, and economically disadvantaged increase (Until The Last Child, 2014). In an interview with the National Post, Rita

Soronen, president and CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption in Canada and the

United States, stated that “one in five youths in Canada turns 18, leaving the system without ever being adopted” (Soronen, 2013). As crown wards, these aged-out youth “are no longer guaranteed food, shelter, clothing or guidance” (ibid). They lose the support of social workers and transition workers who give them “counseling, free food, vouchers and bus tickets”

(Sherlock and Culbert, 2014). The Vancouver Sun reported seven hundred teens in British

Columbia alone who lose this support every year from the ministry of children and families

(Sherlock and Culbert, 2014). As a result of the lack of support aged-out of care youth are less likely to finish high school, more likely to become parents themselves at a young age, more likely to be users of the mental health system, more likely to require social assistance, more likely to rely on homeless shelters, to experience poverty as adults and more likely to be in conflict with the law (Until the Last Child, 2014).

Over two-thirds of children in care in British Columbia will be without a high school diploma by the age of 19, and those who do complete high school will have a hard time accessing financial support to pursue post secondary studies (Sherlock and Culbert, 2014). Many of these youths will likely end up in criminal activity for lack of support. The Vancouver Sun

(ibid) reported 11% of youth in care who were charged through the Youth Criminal Justice Act of 2007. “Homelessness, mental illness, substance abuse, teen pregnancy – all become more likely,” says Soronen in the Vancouver Sun interview (ibid). The irony, as Soronen puts it, “is likely to lead to another generation of children living out their lives in foster care or institutional care, as their parents won’t be able to provide for them” (ibid).

Due to instability in their parental homes and multiple placements throughout the time that they are in care, youth will often take longer to reach “milestones of independence” compared to their counterparts. In 2014, the Toronto Star (Contenta et. al., 2014) reported 23,300 children and youth in care in Ontario. The Star reported that most children return to their parents within a year after they are given some form of help, however, those who remain become “crown wards.” In 2013 to 2014, seven thousand children and youth were reported to be government wards living in foster care or group homes, with 1,000 more children expected to join them

(Contenta et. al., 2014.

The Toronto Star reported that a child in Ontario government’s care had changed homes

88 times and is between the ages of 10 and 15, while three other teens had changed homes over

60 times (Contenta et. al., 2014). Senior government officials described the inconceivable number of moves as “totally unacceptable,” and said they did not “know what is being done to ensure the eighty-eighth move is the child’s last” (ibid). Perhaps the answers should come from the racialized communities of the people most affected by child apprehensions. Empowerment of

racialized communities is needed so that people can own the methods and means of support they need to help their communities. Youth face social and financial barriers when they leave the system. Studies show that children should retain “connections to their cultures, languages and families” (Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, 2013, p. 27). Brownell

(2015) points out that families require better support services, housing and antipoverty programs which address major reasons for child apprehensions. These support services need to be built from cultural contexts that are meaningful within the affected communities.

An African Traditional Community-Centred Approach to Child Welfare in Canada

“The residential school experience has shown us that removing Indigenous children from their families doesn’t eliminate the issues of racism, insufficient housing, and poverty in the

Indigenous communities. Without changing the living conditions and challenges faced by these families, the problems are likely to continue into future generations” (Brownell, 2015)

Child welfare issues among racialized groups in Canada stem from several factors that affect these groups disproportionately, including racism, economic disadvantage that often brings on poverty, and cultural misunderstandings that are inevitable in a dominantly Eurocentric society that demands the erasure of the “other” through culture, language, and race. However, in order to eliminate the devastating effects and impact of racism, poverty, and cultural misunderstandings, it is imperative that the PHAC parenting programs and the CASs refocus their strategies that target racialized groups. The hegemonic prioritization of the arbitrary over the material realities (Giles, 2012) of racialized communities can no longer take precedence over the culturally appropriate resources that help parents and children in racialized communities to succeed in Canada. While the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, adoption agencies, and government-funded parenting programs like NP have identified community as vital to the

success of children and youth both in and out of care (Until the Last Child, 2014), little has been done to understand the communities most affected by government policies and decisions made that leave racialized groups disenfranchised. This is because Eurocentric knowledge and culture that is presumed universal and even forced onto racialized bodies has often yielded violent results that leave families, communities, children, and mothers broken.

The community-centred and holistic approach should guide the efforts of players in the

NP program, including the PHAC and child welfare agencies in order to meet the needs of

African immigrant women, children, and communities. Avruch (2002) and Gellman (2007) argue that mainstream conflict resolution approaches advance “rational political initiatives over supposed ‘non-rational’ ones” (cited in Ani, 2017, p. 27). “Non-rational expressions” such as culture, emotions and religion are perceived as an “impediment to societal growth” in Western culture and are, therefore, negated in conflict resolution efforts. Some authors have argued that initiatives that do not regard cultural, religious or belief systems are oblivious to the fact that societal beliefs, emotions or values do not play a role in people’s thinking (Avruch, 2002; Jean-

Emmanuel Pondi, cited in Ani, 2017, p. 27).

Post modernist thinkers like Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996) and Paul Feyarabend (1924-

1994) have pointed out that scientific studies are socially constructed because they “reflect the background beliefs, values and imagination of people in society” (Ani, 2017, 28). Agencies that work alongside the NP should not view culture as a barrier and challenge but rather as an asset

(Gellman, 2007) because this ensures lasting solutions to conflict resolution (Ani, 2017, 28).

Conflict resolution should “respect people’s humanity, traditions, beliefs and ways of life” (ibid).

To consider only that which is logical and rational is to neglect the “diverse aspects of humanity”

(ibid). Rituals, rites of passage, spiritual ceremonies, and religious events are performed in

African communities within a context that goes beyond the physical as a way of acknowledging the spiritual level of conflict resolution (ibid). Because the mainstream does not understand or acknowledge the spiritual aspects, beliefs, and justifications “incomprehensible to human intellect” does not mean that they should not be addressed (Gyekye, 1987, p. 15). In his book

World of Our Making (1989), Nicholas Onuf, who first conceived the word “constructivism” underscores the social construction of societal values (Ani, 2017, p. 29). Why then should dominant Western perspectives and theories on conflict resolution claim a universal stand?

It is imperative that the NP program, the PHAC, and CASs support the advancement of

African common values embedded in community-centred approaches. Interview analyses of

African immigrant women in this study revealed that regardless of education level, language barriers, status, and whether the women came to Canada as skilled immigrants or refugees, or whether they had lived in several countries before arriving in Canada or came directly from their homeland, these women are bound by a sense of agency. Their experiences, cultural backgrounds, traditional beliefs, and religious affiliations make them strong and resilient not in spite of but because of them. These women are open-minded and work towards empowering themselves and their children through different programs available to them in Canada. However, the effectiveness of many of these programs, particularly parenting programs, is limited, because many of these women’s needs require a culturally informed, holistic and community centred approach that will enable them and their children to succeed beyond learning English as a second language and Eurocentric knowledge based parenting. While these parenting programs are helpful to an extent, they are also used for policing the women. Mitigating African cultural practices that the women value and replacing them with the more dominant acceptable

Eurocentric values, working against the women’s beliefs, and rendering the women voiceless,

have left many women who struggle economically or are single mothers in dire situations when their children are taken into care. It is important to implement initiatives founded on African

Indigenous principles that support African immigrant women within their own communities by people who own the methods, to create a successful and flourishing environment for women and their children.

African immigrant women lay claim to African values of community which are fundamental in the ways they raise their children. Ani (2017) points out that it is within these communal values that “common conflict resolutions” can be found. The African value system of community bears “restorative approaches which provide for communal harmony and the mending of broken relationships … for the continuation of orderly, harmonious and cordial existence in societies” (Ani, 2017, p. 19). Traditional African societies prioritised communal values as the primary approach to conflict rather than as secondary approaches as may be found in Western cultures (ibid). The African model seeks for solutions beyond the physical, utilizing holistic resolutions like the emotional, social, and spiritual, thereby addressing conflict “in its totality” (Ani, 2017, p. 20). Unlike Western society, in African traditional societies “the individual thinks in, for and through his/her society” (Ani, 2017 p. 20). Effective leadership within African Canadian communities needs to come from the people who understand the culture and values that people within that community practice. Boaduo (2010) and Uwazie (2011) have argued that leaders who do not emerge from Indigenous dynamics live in disconnect with people.

As such, the analysis and resolution of conflict is often based on the interest of the individual elites while engagements with the wider community remain a secondary initiative (cited in Ani,

2017).

Several studies attest to the collective and communal nature of traditional African societies whereby a holistic perspective of family and community is often at the forefront of all group activities. Reference to the self or individual is often done within the context of groups and families. In his book, The African Image, Mphahlele states, “Africans gravitate toward people because they live in the company of others, and the concept of communal responsibility and interdependence is the basis of the whole structure of the African’s cultural life” (1962, p. 112).

Social psychologists Markus and Kitayama (1991) have also argued that people describe themselves within cultural boundaries. Those who view themselves as independent are driven by more individualistic characteristics, a perception that is prevalent in Europe and North America.

Those who see themselves as interdependent are led by a view of connectedness to others close to them like family and community and see themselves as linked to different social groups.

“Groups bind, obligate, and guide individuals. Harmonious functioning with social entities is crucial, but the individual sees it as natural to comply” (Geeraert, 2018).

A study in the American Scientist by Nicolas Geeraert (2018) points out that development and cognitive thought are influenced by the cultures we come from. Geeraert (2018) argues that the academic discipline of psychology which was developed largely in North America and

Europe is seen as remarkably successful in what drives human behavior and mental processes that have long been thought to be universal. Geeraert (ibid) points out that psychologists have for decades disproportionately relied on undergraduate students who serve as subjects for their studies because they are readily available to researchers at universities. In his 2010 study, psychologist Joseph Henrich found that more than 90% of participants in psychological studies are a particular portion of the human population – inhabitants of countries that are WEIRD

(Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) …members of WEIRD societies,

including young children, are among the least representative populations one could find for generalizing about humans (Henrich et. al., 2010).

This means that cultural studies in human behaviour have new insights to offer, and more specifically in regard to creating curricula that are representative of new Canadian immigrants, and more specifically, African immigrant women and their children. Geeraert’s (2018) study identifies areas in which culture plays a significant role in thinking styles, the self, and mental health. He points out that “cultural differences in thinking styles are pervasive in cognition – affecting memory, attention, perception, reasoning and how we talk and think” (ibid). In a demonstration of cultural differences in thinking styles, Geeraert (ibid) presented participants from Japan and United States of America a series of animated scenes that showed different aquatic creatures, vegetation, and rock in an underwater setting. The scene lasted twenty seconds with a recall test following immediately after. The test revealed that both groups of participants were equally likely to remember prominent objects, but the Japanese participants were better than Americans at recalling background information like the colour of water. Geeraert (ibid) attributes this ability to holistic thinking which focuses on background and context just as much as foreground, demonstrating that cultural differences can affect something as fundamental as memory.

Culture is undeniably a factor that plays a significant role in the health and cognitive behaviour of children. The World Health report Make Every Mother and Child Count (2005) refers to children as the future of society, and their mothers as guardians of that future. It proffers that mothers transmit the cultural history of families and communities as well as social norms and traditions. They influence children’s early behaviour and establish lifestyle patterns that will determine their future development, capacity for health, and their abilities to shape societies

(World Health Organization, 2005). In the following chapter in which I make an analysis of the interviews undertaken with African immigrant women, I identify the cultural and community values they hold. I also offer specific suggestions about ways in which culture and Indigenous ways of knowing can make a difference in the lives of women and children in African communities in Canada.

Chapter 3: Methodology and Theoretical Framework

Methodology and Research Design

The study was designed as an ethnographic research project that draws on semi- structured interviews with African immigrant mothers in the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario

Canada, and my attendance of the NP parenting program. Through critical ethnography, the study seeks to understand the childrearing experiences of African immigrant women in Canada.

Critical ethnography shares many of the tenets of traditional ethnography like the desire to describe the cultural practices and organization of society (Ross, Rogers, & Duff, 2016), but they differ in their approach. Unlike traditional ethnography, critical ethnographic emancipates the research subject, leverages human agency. and transforms structures that create and reproduce social inequality, domination, and oppression (May, 1997; Thomas, 1993).

Data collection also relied on the Participatory Action feminist research approach which endeavours to give its female participants a voice and make sure they are heard as well. “It is only through such an approach where issues affecting immigrant women may be best understood and translated into effective action” (Khanlou, Gestaldo & Gooden, 2004, p. 10). Participatory

Action Research (PAR) supports the point of view of subaltern perspectives represented by gender, race, ethnicity, and other structures of subordination (Baum, MacDougall, & Smith,

2006; Berge, Mendenhall, & Doherty, 2009). The PAR approach allows for women in the research study to tell their stories and engages them in collective action to address identified issues. Kemmis & McTaffart (2005) point out how PAR is a vehicle for consciousness raising and critical thinking with the objective of exploring the root causes of problems and ultimately engaging in action for change. Rather than conduct a study on a community, PAR drives study participants to narrate their experiences, thus enabling them to retain control of their own

wellbeing (Khanlou, Gestaldo & Gooden, 2004). This methodology is particularly helpful in this research study as it solicits women’s cultural knowledges and experiences in raising children in their diaspora. The findings of the study based on the women’s experiences were used to identify solutions that seek positive change and action for African immigrant women, their families, and communities in Canada.

Method

Recruitment

Of the17 women interviewed, 2 were interviewed in their capacity as instructors for parenting classes. The number of years the instructors taught parenting classes was not identified. All 17 women were between the ages of 35 and 79. Interviews were conducted in mutually agreed-upon locations that ensured privacy and included their homes, cafes, a food court in a mall, and a community center. Demographic data was gathered prior to the start of the semi-structured interviews that included the participant’s name, age, country of origin, length of time living in Canada, the number of children one had, which country the children were born in, and how old the children were before they came to Canada, how old their children are now, what they did for a living back home, and what they do for a living now. Further demographic information was not collected so as to preserve the anonymity of the participants.

Data Collection

Methodology approval for the research project was obtained from Human Research

Ethics Committee, University of Toronto, and ethics protocol were adhered to. Following ethics approval from the University of Toronto Research Ethics Board, all interview participants completed consent forms prior to their interviews. Sample size was determined by data saturation, that is, when further data collection generated no new information (Morse, 1991).

I undertook data collection with a purposive sample of African immigrant women. I chose this sampling technique in order to identify information-rich cases (Patton, 2002). While some of the participants were known to me, the snowball sampling technique facilitated further recruitment of participants and was used to obtain the names of possible participants in this study. An informant at the church I attend was helpful in providing a name of a female medical doctor from one of the African communities. She, in turn, was helpful in providing names of potential interviewees since she herself would not be available to be interviewed. I reached out to these women by speaking to them over the phone and explaining my research study. Most women I spoke to agreed to doing the study. Only a few declined. Criteria for inclusion into the study included being an African immigrant woman from a country in Africa, and a mother.

Qualitative interviews with 17 African immigrant women represented the Eastern, Western,

Northern, and Southern regions of the African continent.

The study draws, as well, from my attendance and participation in the Nobody’s Perfect

(NP) parenting program (2017) in Ontario which is run by the Public Health Agency of Canada

(PHAC). When my daughter was three years old, I voluntarily enrolled in the Nobody’s Perfect program and draw from this experience as an African immigrant mother living in Canada. As an

NP client, I completed the eight-week program along with about ten other students who came from diverse backgrounds, including students from Caribbean, Latina, South Asian, Black

Canadian, and African origins. For this research study, I was able to interview two women who had been in the NP class with me. The time I spent in the NP classroom helped me to develop a more nuanced understanding of the program as a student/NP client.

fig. 1

Region1 Country No. of women

East Africa Ethiopia 1 Southern East Africa Uganda 1 Kenya 1 Mauritius 1

Western Africa Ghana 1 Western Central Africa Nigeria 4 Cameroon 1

Northern Africa Egypt 3

Southern Africa Swaziland 1 South Eastern Africa Malawi 1

Central Africa Congo 1 Northern Central Africa Sudan 1

N=17 F=2 W=15 n= total number of women f= facilitators/instructors w=participants

In-Depth One-On-One Semi Structured Interviews

The research study is also based on ethnographic fieldwork undertaken for four months in which I conducted in-depth one-on-one semi-structured interviews of African immigrant women.

Questions were designed to explore the challenges African women face when raising children in a new culture and to identify resources which may support them in their parenting roles. Open- ended questions were developed for the semi-structured interviews that were conducted.

Seventeen African immigrant women from 12 African countries who lived in the Greater

Toronto Area (GTA) participated in the research study. The interviews lasted between 45 minutes and 1 hour and 45 minutes. The questions posed during the interviews examined: (1) the women’s experiences regarding African culture and traditions in their countries of origin; (2) their experiences immigrating and living in Canada; and (3) their experiences of child-birth and raising children in Canada. Two instructors who had taught parenting programs were also interviewed with a different set of questions that aimed to find out their views on: (1) the experiences of African women who attend parenting programs; (2) instructor recommendations regarding parenting programs geared towards African immigrant women. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. During the interviews, I made notes about the participants’ reactions and responses to questions. I made notes following the interview to record any observations and general feelings I had about the participant or interview.

Limitations

The women in the research study originated from Cameroon (1), Nigeria (3), Malawi (1),

Congo (1), Sudan (1), Ethiopia (1), eSwatini (Swaziland) (1), Mauritius (1), Uganda (1), Kenya

(1), and Egypt (3). The country of the two parenting instructors has not been identified so as to keep their anonymity and not jeopardize their jobs. My sample size was purposive in that it aimed at recruiting women from each region of the African continent including the Northern,

Southern, Western, and Eastern regions. The Eastern region yielded 3 participants from 3 countries and the Southern region 3 participants from 3 countries as well. However, the Western region was oversampled with 6 participants from 3 West African countries, of which 3 were

Nigerian. North Africa was also represented by only one country, Egypt, so all 3 women from

North Africa were Egyptian. While the samples are small and not as balanced, the hope is that the findings from this diverse group of African immigrant women’s narratives will shed some

light on their parenting lived experiences in Canada to warrant policy change, as well as social and political change in their families and communities.

Data Management

I downloaded the mp3 interview files from my voice recorder onto my personal office computer. I saved each file using a file name generated from a pseudo first name and country of the participant. I filed all participant consent forms and placed the document folder in my filing cabinet.

Data Analysis and Coding Approach

Interview tapes were transcribed verbatim and coded manually. Coding refers to the identification of an idea, event, theme or common property that identifies the contents in a piece of data (Kirby and McKenna, 1989). These words and phrases served not only as coding categories but also as important means of sorting the descriptive data I had collected (Bogdan and Biklen, 1992). I moved all the portions of data that seemed to fit together into a theme according to the constant comparative method (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Thematic analysis as defined by Boyatzis (1998) is used to identify major themes and their sub-themes. A theme is a pattern found in the information that describes and organizes possible observations and interpretations of phenomena identified in the data (Boyatzis, 1998). The themes and categories were checked against the literature and theories discussed above. The quotes used to represent

African immigrant women in the research study do not reveal any identifying information in order to protect the participants’ anonymity.

In vivo coding was used for data analysis due to its usefulness in highlighting the voice of the participants, as well as the reliance it offers to participants to give meaning to data (Manning,

2017). I kept notes or jottings (Miles et al., 2014) throughout the coding process. I recorded notes

about what the data was saying, my interpretations of what the data meant, and connections I was making between the data and literature. I also made notes about similarities and differences I observed in the interview responses.

Triangulation: Precautions have been taken to ensure the validity and credibility of the research findings detailed within this study. In particular, I had an extended stay with participants in the NP classroom, I cross-checked interview data like following up with a phone call to one of the participants to verify certain secondary documentation about her country of origin against her own experience growing up. I engaged in debriefing sessions with my supervisor, and I have provided a thick description of findings (Creswell, 2009; Shenton, 2004). I also read through my observation notes and reflection notes not only to identify emerging themes but also to identify gaps and inconsistencies that needed further clarification. Pre-analyzing the data is important for validating and giving credibility to the research study.

As a woman from the Eastern region of Africa, an immigrant to Canada, and a mother, I was also privileged with insider status. As an insider, there are certain nuances like cultural norms told and understood between the women and I. In my analysis chapter, for example, I explain how Nolan’s Master’s thesis (2008) on Sudanese ESL classes in Ontario called for instructors to assume that all Sudanese women are illiterate and would have to be convinced why education is important. As an insider, I understand that such perspectives are not only condescending, but they fail to take into account the complex socio-political experiences of

African immigrant women. Clifford and Marcus ascertain that “insiders studying their own cultures offer new angles of vision and depths of understanding. Their accounts are empowered and restricted in unique ways” (1986, p. 9).

My findings draw on the triangulation of different data sources including interview verbatim transcripts that convey participant perspectives, situations and experiences, field notes, and demographic questionnaires. Findings reported here are based on the converging of data from these sources. Drawing on information gained from a wide range of informants is considered a form of triangulation (Shenton, 2004, p. 66). Fundamentally, conducting interviews of African immigrant women has provided the data necessary to achieve my research objectives.

Theoretical Framework

Transnational Black Feminisms

A transnational approach pays attention to issues like gender and race and the ways in which they are transformed in transnationalism and globalization. Basch, Schiller, and Blanc conceptualized transnationalism as the process where immigrants “forge and sustain multi- stranded social, economic, and political relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement, and through which they create transnational social fields that cross national borders,”

(1994, p. 6). “Transnational communities” are often bilingual (Portes, 1997). They move between cultures and often maintain homes in two countries while pursuing economic, political, and cultural interests in both countries. While challenging the notion of immigrant assimilation, transnational theory looks at the interconnectedness and sharing of information, beliefs, and resources across national borders (Remennick, 2003). Transnational social networks are motivated by several reasons like the need for cultural identity and the desire to return to one’s homeland (Al-Ali, Black, & Koser, 2001; Mamattah, 2006; Vertovec, 2001).

The transnational theoretical framework can explain the social movements and networks of African immigrant women including activities like participation in sociocultural events and visitations to and from homelands (Amoyaw & Abada, 2016; Dobrowolsky & Tastsoglou, 2016).

Inexpensive telecommunication technology now affords migrants the ability to interact more frequently with their homelands (Vertovec, 2001). Exchanges like these in the Canadian immigrant context provide the basis for understanding parenting among African immigrant women in Canada. Through cross-border social networks, African parenting values and cultural practices are continually shared, sustained, nurtured, and consequently reproduced. Transnational theory, therefore, provides consideration for ways in which experiences and interactions across national borders shape the parenting practices of African immigrant women.

A form of transnational theorizing is articulated in the work of Wane and Massaquoi

(2007) who suggest that Black women form different origins in Canada embody a particularly

Canadian brand of Black feminism. The authors recognize the different origins of Black women in Canada but argue that these women share histories of oppression rooted in slavery, colonialism and racism that define Canada and other parts of the world (See Wane et al., 2002,

2007, 2013, 2014). This study draws form this brand of immigrant and diasporic Black Canadian feminism as well. Furthermore, the study is inspired by the work of Black American feminist activist and scholar Patricia Hills Collins whose work draws heavily form African epistemologies much like the Canadian Black feminists who also claim their roots in African peoples and histories.

Patricia Collins argues that Black feminist thought, like any other form of specialized thought, reflects the interests and standpoint of its creators (1990). It reveals its affinity to the power of the group that created it. She argues that because Black women have access to the

Afrocentric and the feminist standpoints, an alternative epistemology should be used to rearticulate a Black woman’s standpoint and should reflect both elements. Collins (1990) references Ruth Shay as someone who uses her concrete experiences to challenge the notion that

formal education is the only legitimate knowledge. In valuing the concrete, African American women invoke both the Afrocentric tradition and a women’s tradition. Collins thus states,

“through child rearing and nurturing activities, women mediate these two modes and use the concrete experiences of their daily lives to assess more abstract knowledge claims” (1990, p. 55).

She underscores that Black women claim and validate knowledge through dialogue which has its roots in Afrocentrism. Dialogue has deep roots in an African-based oral tradition. Here then, knowledge is not worked out in isolation from other individuals but is usually developed through dialogues with other members of a community.

Referencing Molefi Asante, Collins affirms, “people become more human and empowered only in the context of community...” (1990, p. 59). She explains that “Black women’s centrality in families and community organization provide African American women with a high degree of support for invoking dialogue as a dimension of an Afrocentric feminist epistemology” (p. 61). She further points out that “the existence of a self-defined Black women’s standpoint using an Afrocentric feminist epistemology calls into question the content of what currently passes as truth and simultaneously challenges the process of arriving at that truth” (p.

66). The Black feminist theoretical framework is particularly insightful in the ways that Black women resist hegemonic ideologies and is instructive for finding ways in which African immigrant women can use their cultural knowledge to sustain their families and communities.

Anti-colonial theoretical framework

The work of Black Canadian feminists like Norwood (2013), Lobo (2019, and Joachim

(2018) exemplify anti-colonial feminist solidarities in different geographical locations and how these locations inform their work within Canada. The anti-colonial approach posits that there are different ways of knowing and viewing the world, thus challenging and resisting the

“Eurocentric vantage point” (Asante 2001, p. 71). The anti-colonial discursive context validates colonised people’s oral, visual, textual, and political resistances, and interrogates histories, cultures, ideas, and knowledge production (Dei, 2000; 2000a). It acknowledges the power of local people’s ideas and practices that survived colonial encounters and reclaims Indigenous knowledges as a standpoint through spaces of resistance of subaltern peoples (Dei and

Asgharzadeh, 2001). It is within the anti-colonial discourse that the past is reclaimed to safeguard identity, much like Black collective consciousness or negritude (John, 2003) which seeks to develop a positive African identity on the continent and in the diaspora. Such a decolonizing standpoint is empowering for research participants. Research conducted on racialized groups in ESL (see Nolan, 2008) or parenting classes like the NP often negate voices of racialized women. Eurocentric knowledge that is the focal point of these classes is not concerned with the decolonizing process that is used in this research study. The anti-colonial theoretical framework is helpful in this research study as it validates the child rearing experiences of African immigrant women in Canada.

Chapter 4: Interview Analysis

This chapter draws from personal interviews with radicalized women in the GTA to identify gaps in parenting programs like the NP, and in NP evaluation studies. By exploring experiences of African immigrant women and motherhood in Canada, this chapter analyses women’s personal interviews, illuminating their views and experiences which are foregrounded by African cultural values and practices that they feel are important in raising families in Canada.

The NP and other programs like ESL (see Nolan, 2008) imagine an illiterate, poor African woman and deficient mother in need of training, thus essentializing women from this part of the world. In so doing, they erase their vastly diverse cultures, traditions, and voices. This research study’s interview analysis, however, shows a more radicalized African woman who possesses and exhibits agency in her daily life. This chapter proposes ways to address the gaps and improve parenting programs like the NP and other programs that target African and other racialized immigrant and refugee women and communities.

African Immigrant Women’s Cultural and Traditional Backgrounds

African immigrant women’s cultural and traditional backgrounds are important in understanding how the women navigate culture in their new host country, Canada. The women come from different cultural backgrounds that dictate how they live and raise their children in

Canada. This section looks at the way in which African traditional societies viewed women and how these perspectives changed with colonialism in Africa.

Reverence of women in African traditional societies

Women in African traditional societies possessed power and were seen as a great part and equation to the sustainability of African Indigenous communities. In matrilineal societies like the

Bemba of Northern Zambia, power and authority lay with the woman and her brother.

Matrilinearity is the major influence in what children learn regarding the customs, beliefs, and culture about the social roles of being a woman, mother, and wife as girls, or a man, father, and husband as boys (Mwizenge, 1988).

Quoting Hage and Marck (2011), Saidi (2015) points out that “Bantu-speaking peoples have been matrilineal and matrilocal since they left West Africa at least 5,500 years ago,” and that it is only in “more recent historical times” that some Bantu societies started turning patrilineal. Rhiannon’s (2015) research study titled “A History of African Motherhood” looks at the significant role mothers played in Uganda in the period between 700 and 1900. Rhiannon states that around the eight century CE, people who spoke proto-Nyanza and lived along the northwestern shore of Lake Victoria-Nyanza looked to build a sustainable community “that could reproduce itself biologically and socially,” (38) and in so doing “they built broad support networks… founded on matrilineal ties” (ibid). Rhiannon (2015) contends that these

“matrilineal ties informed politics in a North Nyanzan society centred on agriculture, which was practised alongside hunting, fishing, gathering wild foods, and keeping small livestock” (38).

With the increasing control of leadership by royal families, ideologies of motherhood “that shaped kinship organisation moved into the political realm” (39). Rhiannon explains that this occurred “in the form of queen mothers wielding significant and real authority in the way in which political power was shored up and transferred between generations (ibid). Rhiannon

(2015) points out that “this aspect of royal power” of queen mothers is also evident in neighbouring regions and countries in nineteenth century Rwanda, Nkore and Buhaya, Buganda,

Busoga, and Bugwere (63). “Aside from her own estates,” asserts Rhiannon, “the queen mother’s power would have lain in her ability to influence others in power, including her son and the chiefs” (64). “Motherhood – social, ideological, and biological,” (65) adds Rhiannon (2015), was

not only at the heart of authority in North Nyanza but was also prominent “across society from elite politics to ordinary household economies” (73).

Amadiume (1987) also calls attention to the ways in which motherhood is revered in traditional Nnobi society in Eastern Nigeria. A Nnobi expression describes women as having inherited the gift of hard work and the pot of prosperity from their goddess Idemili (ibid).

Amadiume maintains that women were seen as producers whereby the principles of control and protection applied to them throughout their productive period as daughters, wives and mothers.

They were also revered as bearers of oral history and carriers of Indigenous knowledge. Cultural beliefs and practices surrounded them and their role in life-cycle ceremonies, many of which continue to exist unchanged among the Nnobi people.

Effects of colonialism on African traditional societies

Femi Nzegwu’s (2001) analysis of the effects of colonialism that led to Western/modern forms of governance in African societies shows that the modern forms of governance led to a breakdown of traditional African values, and more so, created a divide between genders, bringing disunity between men and women. Nzegwu’s examination of the social status of women and the values upheld in Igbo society in Nigeria before the European conquest identifies how the

European invasion “created a disequilibrium within the balance of power relations which traditionally existed between individuals and communities, between the physical and the spiritual, and, perhaps most importantly, between men and women” (2001, p. 38). Nzegwu explains that the roles an individual could play in preconquest Igboland were not sex specific. As long as the greater communal good was preserved, the said goal achieved, and the coherence of society, family, and lineage were fully ensured. A woman, therefore, could perform a “male” role because the variety of tasks that existed in society, particularly those linked to the

acquisition of societal resources like power, authority, wealth, and land were not dependent on the biological sex of the individual. Roles, rights and interests were maintained and safeguarded by men and women in culturally constructed categories which sometimes meant sex did not correspond to gender (Nzegwu 2001). If African women occupied a central place in the social, economic, and political arenas in African traditional societies, they have also been greatly affected by the process of post-colonial change on the African continent.

Oral Literature in African traditional societies

African traditional societies are inherently oral. Traditional knowledge was transmitted by word of mouth and passed on from generation to generation. The oral system was highly organised and sophisticated and was ingrained in the cultures, daily activities and lives of people and communities and in their social, economic, and political systems. Nandwa and Bukenya

(1983) describe oral literature as utterances that are spoken, recited or sung. Their composition and performance exhibit to an appreciable degree the artistic characteristics of accurate observation, vivid imagination, and ingenious expression. Parents and elders passed on African traditional knowledge to their children informally while griots were highly trained in the art of orality and served as oral historians, praise-singers, musicians, genealogists, and storytellers.

They were known as “masters of the word” or “artisans of the spoken word” (Charry, 2012, p.

79). Recording the historical experiences of a people, including the rulers and the ruled, is one of the most acknowledged uses of oral literature. This is done through birth songs, initiation songs, marriage songs, ceremonies of giving chieftaincy titles, songs about death and loss, and so on.

Understanding the social, natural, cultural, spiritual, individual, and collective components of African Indigenous cultures requires an interrogation of Africa’s traditional knowledge and know-how which have maintained African societies throughout the ages (Gueye,

1995). Dei (2012) contends that the Indigenous past is informative and provides solution- oriented lessons about sustainable traditions of group mutuality, spirituality, self-help, communal bonding, and social responsibility. Okpewho (1992) also proffers that it is necessary for a society to acquire information that speaks to who they are, their origins and connections, their peculiar ways of living and behaving which identify them as a people and must be preserved for the sake of cultural continuity. These include various forms of oral literature which were practiced in the society like songs, narratives, proverbs, and riddles. Oral literature was delivered privately, for example, through mother to child, artist to apprentice, or publicly in moonlight entertainment, or by skilled artists in open performances. Okpewho (ibid) states that through these media, young members of the society absorbed the ideas that would guide them through life while the older ones were constantly reminded of the rules and ideals that had to be kept alive for the benefit of those coming after them. “Oral literature, even when it deals with events of history, presents constantly to members of contemporary society the standards of excellence that they should practice in their own interests and for the survival of the society.” (Okpewho, 1992, p. 117).

African Indigenous knowledges were a vital part of African cultures which people explained through folktales, mythologies, dance, knowledge about interpretations of phenomenon, knowledge about how to live in harmony with the land, and knowledge used to teach and instill wisdom, respect, and discipline to younger generations. Dislange’s study (2001) of three ethnic groups explicates that oral tradition is used as an unconscious strategy to help children find their identity and future gender roles in society. In order to transmit traditional moral codes and patterns of behaviour to the younger generation, folktales are and can be used as an educational tool and pedagogical instrument by parents and elders to create a sense of ethnic solidarity in the minds of children. Some folktales contained patterns of behaviour and moral

codes used for purposes of sex enlightenment. These folktales tell how sexuality is perceived and appreciated in gender relationships and family life (ibid). Kenyatta (1965) points out rites of passage such as circumcision, which was a big celebration and had enormous educational, social, moral, and religious implications that were far removed from the actual operation. Puberty rites, for example, were initiated to prevent young girls and adolescents from teenage pregnancy, prostitution, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and they also taught responsibility

(Amos, 2013). Many African people believe that with old age comes wisdom and understanding of the world that is passed on to the young. The younger generation is, as such, taught to respect elders’ knowledge (Dei, 2000; Mbiti, 1982; Boateng, 1980).

Communality of African traditional societies

African traditional societies were built on communality with the extended family as the backbone for this support system. The extended family played a very important role in the lives of children. It is considered that even when a child’s parents are deceased, a child will always have parents. This is because the extended family is there to cushion or parent the child (Amos,

2013). Discipline of children was the responsibility of the entire extended family (Kenyatta,

1965). Extended family units were organized and worked for the common good of the community through the passing on of values, customs, and knowledge to children (Mwizenge,

1988).

Wane’s (2000) study underscores the communality and kinship of African peoples, stating that within her small Embu community in Eastern Kenya, older women were referred to as grandmothers, and others were addressed as mama or aunt. Knowing the name of one’s tribe or clan was not enough as far as these elderly women were concerned. It was imperative that one know several generations of one’s family tree, allowing for lineage to be established because it

was considered that everyone was connected at some point in the family tree (2000). Within the

Indigenous African world view, the family supports the individual and the community supports the family. Hence, African cultural knowledge is a world view and a knowledge base that is critical for group and community survival (Dei, 2000).

How Racialized Women Experience the NP Program

In one-on-one interviews undertaken for this study with African women living in Canada, several themes were coded and identified from the interviews, and findings were compared to content covered in the books used in the NP program. Themes were also compared to major NP impact evaluation studies (Kennett, Chislett & Olver, 2012; Skrypnek & Charchun, 2009) with the purpose of assessing findings of these studies with African immigrant women’s experiences of childrearing. These comparisons were made to establish the effectiveness of parenting programs, and more specifically, the NP program for its African immigrant women and other racialized NP clients.

The impact evaluation studies used in the analysis were funded by the Public Health

Agency of Canada (PHAC), the same government agency that delivers the NP program through community organizations across Canada. This means that findings of the impact evaluation studies are biased towards the NP program and were done for the purpose of securing funding for the NP program. The evaluation studies are quoted in the PHAC fact sheets (2017) about the NP program and appear to be the most recent evaluation studies done about the NP. However, older evaluation studies on the NP program (Chislett & Kennet, 2006; Leskiw & Associates, 2002;

Rootman et al., 1998; Vollman, 2001) are also referenced in this analysis.

Eurocentricism in the NP Program

A comparison of themes derived from the interview analyses with content from NP books and impact evaluation studies shows that the experiences, cultural values and practices, and the women’s local knowledges are often denied in favour of Eurocentric knowledge in the NP classroom. This is despite the NP key concept that emphasises a learner-centred approach and claims to put the experiences and values of its learners at the center of learning (Rootman, 1998).

African immigrant women, however, carry and embody these local knowledges from their homelands. The negation of African women’s local knowledges leads to the silencing of the women’s voices by forcing them to denounce those cultural values and knowledges that they consider important in raising their children in Canada.

The Skrypnek & Charchun (2009) impact evaluation study assesses the following core areas covered in the NP books: parenting behaviour; nurturing and discipline strategies; parenting confidence; parental stress, coping, and problem-solving; parental knowledge of community resources and how to access them; and parental perception of social supports. These areas of assessment are considered significant because of the impact they have on parenting

(Cochran & Niego, 1995; Crnic & Low, 2002; Seng & Prinz, 2008, as quoted in Skrypnek,

2009). The results of the Skrypnek & Charchun impact study demonstrate that the NP was

“successful in reaching most of its program objectives” (2009, p. 54). The study claims that NP participants “experience increased confidence in their parenting skills, self-sufficiency and independence, frequency of positive parent-child interactions, use of positive discipline techniques, access to peer/social/community support, ability to cope with stress, ability to problem solve, and resiliency” (PHAC fact sheet, 2017).

Of note, however, is that these evaluation impact studies lump all women’s experiences regardless of cultural background or race. Women of European descent, Asian, African, and

Caribbean women do not all experience the NP program the same way. The only reference to racialized women’s experiences that the NP impact studies addresses is written under a few paragraphs subtitled ‘multicultural issues’ or ‘culture and language’ (Rootman, 1998). These subtopics are used to address the different cultures and experiences of racialized women in

Canada. A few paragraphs are dedicated to a First Nations NP program in Rootman’s (1998) study. However, the meagre existence of racialized people’s studies in the NP program illustrates the need for comprehensive research of the NP’s racialized clients.

NP evaluation impact studies claim that the NP has been successful in reaching most of its program objectives. They purport that the NP “contributes to improvements in a number of parental outcomes that are consistently associated with superior child outcomes” (Skrypnek,

2009, p. 47). Two assumptions are hereby made in this Skyprenek study’s outcomes. First,

Western parenting methods are superior to African methods of parenting. Secondly, the NP method is successful when it can impart Western parenting knowledge to African women. In fact, a study of Somali women’s parenting education classes and Somali mother’s experiences of childrearing in Canada shows that parenting agencies view Somali mothers as “raising future citizens of Canada” (Fellin, 2015, p. 31). This means that parenting agencies work to rid racialized women of their cultural knowledges in order to impart them with what they consider to be superior Western knowledge. The core belief underlying these educational programs is that refugees are not only victims of war but are also victims of their traditions and backward cultures. “They must become worthy of Canadian citizenship in today’s political environment, which is regarded as a privilege or a prize rather than a right” (Fellin, 2015, p. 36). Fellin (2015)

notes that Somali women’s histories are presented as unstable, unknowable, irrelevant, and unusable in citizenship education classes.

Furthermore, African Canadian and Indigenous children are apprehended at much higher rates than any other racial group and over-presented in foster care (Ontario Human Rights

Commission, 2018). Moreover, the NP program works closely with Children’s Aid Societies who are responsible for child apprehensions. The assumptions, therefore, about the success of the

NP program and its superior child outcomes cannot refer to African Canadian children. In a predominantly White culture, these racialized groups are marginalised in these studies because the outcomes of the studies are not relevant to their experiences.

While this research study does not analyze NP programs in cultures from countries like

Japan, Chile, or Mexico where the Canadian NP model has been implemented, it would be interesting to find out how the instruction and implementation of the NP program has been culturally applied in these countries, or if it remains Eurocentric. In my analysis of the NP program, my argument stems from the belief that even though the NP is set in a Canadian context, yet different cultural perspectives continue to inform the childrearing practices of racialized women in Canada. This is evident in the narratives of two participants in this research study, Mensah and Muna. Mensah is an educated woman with a bachelor’s degree in Business

Administration from Egypt and is already familiar with Western modern culture because she is exposed to traditional sciences through higher education. Hence, Mensah seeks parenting programs intentionally to enrich her parenting skills. She also speaks English and wants to keep up with her professional career. Muna is a woman from Sudan who I met in the NP class. Muna aspires to more traditional cultural and gender norms, yet she is literate in Arabic and in fact also

seeks connection to her local community in Canada by attending social and community programs like the NP.

Mensah attended a parenting class when her son was under three years old. She also sought out a career in childhood education. While choosing what was beneficial to her in

Canadian culture, Mensah did this on her own terms by retaining her preference for speaking in her mother tongue to her children instead of using English. As a result of attending a parenting class, Mensah spoke about learning how to communicate better with her children and bonding with them. She felt that the communication and bond she has with her children is different from her own childhood experience communicating with her parents, more specifically her mother.

She believes that education makes the difference considering that her mother did not finish high school, while she is a university graduate.

Comparing her Canadian childrearing experience to her experience growing up in Egypt,

Mensah believes that parenting classes enabled her and her husband to be more involved with their children (although her husband did not attend the classes). She talks about learning how to talk to and stimulate her children. “It taught me things,” she says. “How to teach your child, walk around, talk to them, teach them about the things around you.” Mensah, however, says she enjoyed her childhood growing up, and although there were no toys or technology like her children have, she feels that her growing up experience was creative in the sense that they played with nature using sticks and stones, and making mud cakes.

Muna, on the other hand, was a stay-at-home mom who had a Grade 12 equivalent from

Sudan. She did not speak English when she came to Canada and took English as a Second

Language (ESL) classes to level seven. She was 19 when she came to Canada, was married, and had attended school in Sudan where the language of instruction was Arabic. At the time of the

interview (2017), she had lived in Canada for 16 years. Muna does not entirely fit the NP’s target audience being that she is married and not a single parent as the NP would require. However, NP requirements appear to be lax or flexible since they did not request for my marital status, income, or education level when I registered for the NP program. Other criteria include being young, isolated, with no friends or family nearby, low income, and/or having little formal education

(PHAC 2017, Fact Sheet). However, with no other family other than her husband, and after staying home for six months, Muna was lonely and bored when she discovered a community center in her neighbourhood with programs and activities she could do to occupy her time and take her son to.

Muna did not intentionally seek out parenting and education classes to learn about the

Canadian system as Mensah did. This is likely because Muna could not read or write in any of

Canada’s official languages. Along her path of discovery, she, like Mensah, also found different ways of engaging her children. Although she played with her son at home, she learnt that she could also read to him and teach him how to read. Muna appreciated this aspect greatly saying that it was something she had not seen growing up in Sudan. With six children at the time of the interview, Muna had been attending parenting programs at the community center and at her children’s schools for twelve years. She confesses to repeating the programs over and over again because they gave her something to do instead of staying home all the time. Muna’s narrative describes the milestones that she learnt to identify in the child development stages which are also addressed in the NP books.

Muna’s inability to speak or write in any of Canada’s official languages was likely a barrier to finding resources in her community when she first arrived. It took her six months, but she eventually found some when she explored her neighbourhood. This is unlike Mensah’s

experience who due to her level of education, likely had an easier time finding the information and resources she needed.

Regardless of the level of education, income, or martial status, African immigrant women want the best for their children. They look out for opportunities available to them to better educate and empower themselves and their children, and they embrace not just their cultural knowledge but a hybrid knowledge that incorporates both African and Western cultures. The NP program, among other parenting programs, is an important resource that African immigrant women utilize to settle into Canadian society and to learn about new ways of doing things.

However, that the NP program uses a predominantly Eurocentric curriculum works to erase

African immigrant women’s cultural knowledges and does not put into consideration the cultural annihilation that is detrimental to both the mothers and their children. Although Muna, for example, could read and write in Arabic, she would be considered illiterate when she came to

Canada, because she did not speak or write English, French, or any other dominant European language. Her language and social experiences are negated as a result. The basic definition of literacy is the ability to read and write. Arabic, a language Sudanese women are more likely to be able to read and write, does not count as literacy because it is outside of Western hegemonic languages.

A study by Nolan (2008) discusses ways in which Sudanese women’s ESL classes can be made relevant to their circumstances as refugees who come from an illiterate society and have been traumatized by war. Muna’s family had been affected by war and economic difficulty as

Christians living in the Arab Muslim North of Sudan. When Christians were relocated by the government, this led to the loss of Muna’s father’s job that paid for the expensive English education in Muna’s private school when she was in second grade. Having lost their home and

livelihood, Muna was forced to attend a Muslim school where she learned in Arabic. An analysis of Nolan’s (2008) study reduces the ESL Sudanese women’s lives to mere sketches with irrelevant histories. Quoting Burgoyne et al (2007) who explain that the Sudanese women think reading and writing is a “completely foreign concept and perhaps an unnecessary one” (Nolan

2008, p. 20), Nolan does not consider that Arabic is primarily the language of instruction in

Sudan (Library of Congress Federal Research Division, Dec. 2004). As of 2015, the estimated literacy rate in Sudan was 75.9% of the total population, 83.3% for males and 68.6% for females

(CIA library publications: World Fact Book, 2004) meaning that a large population of women were literate, albeit in Arabic. The Library of Congress study (2004) also states that education is free and compulsory at the primary level and is followed by three years of middle school and three years of secondary (or technical instruction). The statistics suggest that reading and writing are not as foreign a concept as these authors would have us believe.

Nolan (2008) cautions that the first hurdle an ESL teacher will need to overcome is to convince the women why they need to learn to read and write in Canada. Once this has been accomplished, she provides guidelines to running an effective and successful class. Nolan’s argument, however, is disputed in Muna’s narrative. While not all women may have had the opportunity to go to school, yet they are aware that education betters their lives. Muna, for example, talks about her elder sister in Sudan who never got a chance to go to school like she did, but was able to educate her children to have a better future. Two of her sister’s children are in university and one in grade eight (Muna interview, 2017). “She’s very smart,” says Muna about her sister. “She can’t write but is good at mental math.” Muna’s story debunks perspectives authored by Eurocentric programs which erase African immigrant women’s experiences and lives.

Educational models that underlie hegemonic perspectives like Nolan’s (2008) are prevalent in many immigrant and parenting classes like the NP. Such perspectives render racialized women invisible and their cultural experiences and narratives irrelevant inside the NP classroom. Suggestions like complimenting a dish as a strategy for cultural sensitivity, as Nolan

(2008) puts forward in her study, only reduce the women’s lives to clichés and do not help forward the understanding of how African or other racialized women experience programs that target them. Nolan’s theoretical framework is heavily influenced by Eurocentric scholarship that when she further suggests using poetry as a learning strategy for women coming from an oral culture, it is hard to imagine how she can connect to people of a culture she knows nothing about, considering that poetry is created from the culture that produces it. Here, I will make a comparison of another ESL teacher’s account who shares a background with his students to show how understanding culture is very important to connecting with students in a program.

Ahmed Knowmadic, an ESL teacher, talks about his experience teaching poetry to ESL students at John D. Bracco Junior High in Edmonton, Alberta. In a video titled, “Poetry is the

Voice of Cultural Expression” (Citizen O., 2015), Knowmadic explains that his connection working with ESL students is that he was once an ESL student. He talks about having an affinity with the youth he taught because he shared a similar history with them. This is unlike Nolan

(2008) who has no cultural or historical connection to the women she’s teaching. Ahmed

Knowmadic does not claim to speak for the youth he teaches but clarifies that he ensures that the voice of the students is heard in their poetry, and not him placing his voice over theirs as the instructor. The poetry created by the students in Ahmed’s class was presented at Edmonton’s city hall for World Refugee Day on June 20, 2015. Nolan (2008) on the other hand, does not explain what kind of poetry she taught her students or how to teach poetry to Sudanese women, except

for her understanding that they come from an oral culture. If she used Western poetry to teach, her lessons would likely be culturally inaccessible to the women.

Creating culturally realistic connections enables good and effective communication between learner and teacher. The teacher is better able to appreciate and respect the needs and rights of learners by creating diverse, cohesive, and inclusive societies, locally, nationally, and globally (Welsh Government Services and information, 2018). The learner also better understands his or her own identity, culture, community, and society, and develops a sense of identity. The learner is able to articulate, express and represent his or her own emotions and is equipped to understand the emotions of others (ibid). This strengthens the learner’s sense of belonging, development of communication skills, and helps make the learner a more confident individual whose voice can be heard (ibid). When the learner retells and shares her culture and

Indigenous knowledge, it deconstructs Western scholarship that often dehumanises the learner. It gives voice to those things the learner knows intuitively, and most importantly, it enables the learner to resist the dehumanization, to retrench in the margins, to remake herself through her culture, language and social practices (Smith, 1999).

Racialized women do not enter the NP classroom with a brain vacuum that is ready to be filled with White-centred knowledge. According to Molefi, the White learner’s dominant language is the language of the classroom, and therefore, the culture being taught is “White” culture, and the curriculum is a “White self-esteem curriculum” (Molefi, 1992, p. 29). As it happens, racialized women embody local knowledges and cultural experiences that have nurtured and raised them. It may appear desirable for NP facilitators to erase the women’s cultural and local knowledges and replace them with “White culture,” but impeding women’s local knowledges affects the learner’s success as well as facilitator efforts (Ghouti &

Mohammed, 2014). Learners draw from their cultural and Indigenous knowledge systems in NP classes. However, because their cultures are considered primitive and backward, their voices are silenced since they are seen as having nothing to contribute to these classes. Pervasive hegemonic perspectives in parenting classes like the NP center Eurocentric knowledge as the only valid way of teaching, learning, and thinking. The NP lists its four key concepts as participant centred, respecting values, using experiential learning, and flexibility (PHAC, 2017).

In as much as these key concepts are commendable, they are also steeped in a Eurocentric curriculum and therefore racialized learners do not find them relatable to their lived experiences.

Parenting programs like the NP and other programs like ESL which target racialized immigrant women from the global south do not recognise the diversity of these women nor the desire for the cultural connections they seek. These programs see the women as culturally and politically inferior subjects who must be guided to fit into Canada. The NP program must acknowledge the agency of these women and the fact that they already want to enrich their parenting skills by exploring Canadian ways of raising kids alongside their own cultural values and practices. Hence, these women seek to embrace cultural hybridity or cultural mixing. In the following section I explore ways in which African immigrant women experience parenting in

Canada.

Experiencing Parenting in Canada: Personal Narratives of Radicalized Women

Backgrounds of Interview Participants: The women’s educational, professional, and economic backgrounds, as well as the circumstances under which they came either as refugees, students, skilled workers, or family sponsorships, are essential in understanding how the women perceive and access programs in Canada. Some of the women had lived in other countries like the US, Belgium, and Saudi Arabia before coming to Canada. Most of the women interviewed

came from professional backgrounds and had first degrees or were trained professionals in their fields. All the women have different educational levels, professions, and economic backgrounds.

Several of the women had first degrees from their home countries when they arrived in Canada and were able to work and/or go back to university or college to start a new career or continue with the same one they had in their countries of origin. Several of the women had other professions or jobs before arriving in Canada some of which included a doctor, lawyer, a teacher, a nurse, accountant, businesswomen, translator, pharmacist, and banker.

In Canada, some of the women changed to other professions such as teachers or child education assistants. Some women went back to school to study, including three who pursued social work and teaching, or were trying to get accreditation or jobs in their former professions like medicine and law. One of the women was a stay-at-home mother who had a Grade 12 equivalent diploma from her country of origin and attended ESL classes to learn English when she arrived in Canada. Some of the women took on jobs when they first arrived like factory work, and personal support work, or data entry jobs prior to changing professions. Some of the women arrived in Canada with young or teenage children, while others had all their children in

Canada, or had adult children who lived to Canada. Only one of the women is Muslim while the rest are Christians.

Several of the women were married to husbands who are lawyers, engineers, or other skilled professions, or who were students. When they first arrived in Canada, some of their husbands went back to school for accreditation in their professional areas of training to attain new skills while working on the side. The women’s ages ranged from 35 to 70 years old. In 2017 when the interviews were conducted, the length of time the women had lived in Canada ranged from 5 years to 28 years. Two of the older women were grandparents and had retired from

nursing and teaching respectively in their countries of origin before coming to Canada. They moved to Canada to live with their married children or relatives. One of them came to help as a caregiver for the children in the home.

Only two of the women interviewed had been participants in parenting classes in Canada.

One woman had attended several parenting classes, including the NP. Another woman had attended a parenting class many years ago although she was not sure if it was the NP. The interviews also included Public Health Nurses (2) who were interviewed in their capacity as parenting program instructors. One was an NP instructor at the time of the interview while the other PHN had been an instructor of a different parenting class some years ago.

Emergent Themes

An analysis of interview data for this study yielded four emergent themes namely, community; discipline; respect; and father/male (un)involvement. These themes are explored alongside NP key goals, key concepts, and NP core areas for purposes of comparing and understanding African immigrant women’s experiences in Canada. The themes illustrate that culturally relevant parenting curricula for the NP and other parenting programs, as well as community supports are an effective way of empowering African immigrant women and children in Canada.

Theme 1: Community

NP key goal: “Community engagement and social support.”

The NP program recognizes that “social, geographic and/or cultural isolation were risks for poorer health outcomes for parents and children and for less than optimal parenting”

(Skrypnek, 2009, p. 244). The Skrypnek and Charchun (2009) impact evaluation study noted that community engagement and social support is deemed a crucial factor in supporting parents

within the parenting roles. As a result, the NP made community engagement and social support a key goal. Community engagement and social support for the NP involves connecting parents to resources in the community as well as promoting the development of a support network

(Skrypnek and Charchun, 2009). The Skrypnek (2009) study, however, also points out that few past NP evaluation studies (Bevc et al., 2000) show little evidence that parents increase their use of community resources after participating in the NP program. The study also establishes that there is little evidence of changes in parents’ social support network regarding size or satisfaction. A reason for this could be that NP perceptions of community and social supports provided to NP clients do not relate to their learner experiences and are, therefore, not as impactful.

A study by Rootman et al. (1998) alleges that parents in NP focus groups expressed feeling less lonely or less isolation. Jolibois (1997) also reported that parents in the NP program felt supported by other parents in their group where they developed new friendships and maintained contact with other parents in the group (also referenced in Rootman et al., 1998). It makes sense that NP parents coming together in a group are less lonely because they are with other people. For example, Muna (Sudan), a woman in the present study, talked about taking the

NP program multiple times because she got bored at home, so it gave her something to do.

However, not all participants are going to take parenting classes repeatedly in search of

“something to do.”

Exclusion of women’s cultures in the NP goal for ‘community engagement and social support’: The objective of the NP class is to enable participants to create long term relationships with other participants that will help alleviate the boredom and isolation, and create a support network. An NP classroom that speaks to the women’s cultural values, practices and local

knowledges is more likely to create such a support network for its clients. An example is evident in Rootman’s (1998) NP Evaluation in Ontario which included three racialized women. Rootman

(1998) references “the three Farsi-speaking” parents in his evaluation study stating, “all three parents had established a very good friendship with each other as a result of the Nobody’s

Perfect group” (p. 19). It is likely that these women formed a bond due to the cultural connection they had and less because of the NP program itself. Having created a bond in the NP class, the

Farsi speaking parents would likely continue this friendship long after the NP program is over. It makes sense, therefore, that community and social supports in the NP program are greatly influenced by the cultural backgrounds of racialized women. As a participant in the NP class, I noticed that the two South Asian women who had difficulty speaking English, spoke to each other and bonded in the classroom. Although the NP recognizes the detrimental effects of social and cultural isolation on parents and their children, the NP’s community and social supports resources fail to give much consideration to the values, cultures, and customs of racialized women in the classroom, yet they play a very important role in the health and well being of racialized women.

Child rearing in African communities

African immigrant women come from strong family support systems where the extended family and community members are involved in childrearing activities. In the interviews undertaken for this research study, all the women spoke about the lack of extended family support in Canada where childrearing becomes a mostly lone activity. Interview participant

Muna recounts her experience of the birth of her first child in Canada as very isolating, in part because she could not speak English and, therefore, could not communicate effectively to the hospital staff. Apart from her husband, she also had no other family members or friends to

support her during her birthing experience as a new immigrant in Canada and a nineteen-year-old teenager. When a friend of her husband stepped in to help, also a Sudanese woman, it was a great relief to Muna. Muna said:

“Thank God I had my husband’s friend in the building... she helped me a lot because I have my baby premature and I didn’t know how to hold it though. But this lady she was with me in the hospital for three days… She with me all the time, all the second, all the minute with me even when I have the baby. They (the hospital staff) hold the baby with her. For three months she washing the baby, she take care of the baby, and she with me at home. Is very good. Without her,

I don’t have what to do” (Muna interview, 2017).

Muna explains that in Sudan one is surrounded by family and does not have to worry about the children because they are held and taken care of by everyone else. The traditional

African family and communal structure provides support in raising children, and provides support to new mothers as well. For Muna, having someone who understood the cultural protocols of African mothering made the difference in the birthing experience of her first son in

Canada. Another woman from Ethiopia, Azmera, echoes a similar sentiment about the involvement of community to care and support new mothers in her home country, and the lack of support in Canada. In her words:

“She (the mother) has to be fed well, treated well, sleep well, so people in the neighbourhood take care of her until she get back to her strength. And then she was given nutritious food, because I think having all the bleeding and stuff they think she’s in a desperate situation for nutrition and good food… Here (Canada), the next day when I come home, I just started washing my kid’s clothes… No wonder why my mom has ten kids and she’s still alive and well and she’s doing her own things… the food comes on her bed, the tea, the snacks, the

dinner, the lunch. They take care of her. The baby is always with her and they are always breastfed… Kids’ clothes is washed by neighbours again, they bath the baby, put the oil and just give it to her to feed.” (Azmera, Ethiopia, 2017).

Questions raised in the interviews on child rearing and taking care of the new mother showed that African women struggle in Canada because they do not have the family and community support they have in their homelands. Another woman, Mimie, from Cameroon also talked about the struggle of raising children in Canada without the kind of support one receives from the community in her homeland. Mimie said:

“…basically, the support system is so different because you can easily leave your baby with your neighbour and just take off. You would just tell the neighbour, ‘I just want to run down to the market,’ and you go and stay for five hours. And you just come back and you take the baby. And It was normal. Or you drop your baby off with some relative…” (Mimie, Cameroon,

2017).

Mimie also talks about hospitality in the community whereby if a child as young as four or five came back from school and no one was home, it was normal for the child to go to the neighbour’s house until the parents came home. According to Mimie, “taking care of a baby is not as difficult as here, everybody took care of everybody” (ibid).

African women’s narratives reveal several experiences that show the realities of childbirth and childrearing in Canada. Their experiences illustrate the necessity and agency they attribute to extended family and community support. Besides coping in a new host country and raising children in a new culture, these women remain attached to their cultures and homelands as a coping mechanism in Canada.

Retaining family ties to the homeland

A study undertaken in three Canadian cities, Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg, explores the “emotional reconstruction” of “home” in which African immigrants maintain a strong attachment to their homelands while struggling to adapt to a new country. In the study, Baffoe asserts that the decision to leave one’s homeland for settlement in the first place is usually made through the support network of family, friends, and neighbours: “With decisions sometimes made by the whole family, close kinship or extended, family members may pool together resources for one or more family members to make the journey to a new country” (2010, p. 160).

For many of these women the strong family attachment and support continues, which results in some travelling back to their homelands during pregnancy to have the baby. In the words of Azmera, an immigrant woman from Ethiopia who has witnessed this in Ethiopian communities in Canada:

“So, now I see some Ethiopians when they are close to childbirth, they go back to

Ethiopia to get that treatment… It is such an agony for my mom, she calls every single day ‘how are you doing, who’s gonna take care of you. Your blood is still not dried. It’s still flowing. You should be in bed. You shouldn’t move. Your back is weak. Your back has to be stronger.’ …I think they (pregnant women) are allowed to travel under six months. They take all their medical records from their doctor. It’s not like before. They get the same kind of treatment like here…

They want that presence, being in the midst of all the family members crowded. You are treated like a princess” (Azmera, Ethiopia, 2017).

African immigrant women require community supports that are culturally relevant to them. While community engagement and social support for the NP involves connecting parents to resources in the community and promoting the development of a support network (Skrypnek and Charchun, 2009, p. 15), it is imperative that these supports are created within the African

communities themselves. Members of the communities must be involved because they understand the cultural values attached to African mothering in their communities. Several cultural factors like length of time the new mother can rest without doing any work or chores are very significant in African cultures. The nutritional content of the foods the mother is fed, and who takes care of the mother and baby during the period of rest are important issues that many

African cultures consider for new mothers. Childbirth is a very significant celebration that is often accompanied by several rituals like naming the child, circumcision, baptisms, and baby dedications. Birthing celebrations often go on for weeks or months, as close family, friends, neighbours, and well-wishers all play a part in celebrating the mother and child.

Often in keeping with their African cultures, African women in Canada continue to find ways to involve their families and communities. For some, it means bringing their mothers or other relative from back home to support the new mother. Mensah, a woman from Egypt, who had a C-section during child-birth talks about her mother coming from Egypt to stay with her.

Mensah explains that in her culture a mother who has given birth does not work for three months, and that the mother and the mother-in-law take care of the child (Mensah, 2017).

Not only do these women require the social supports, but also they are attached to their cultures, which value good cultural experiences of childbirth. For some women, travelling to their homelands after the baby is born is one way they seek the support they need from family and community. Interview participant, Mimie talked about going back to Cameroon after her son was born and the help she received from her community:

“As soon as I went back, I stopped giving him his bath. Even though he was more than a month old when I went back, they hadn’t done what they (traditionally) do when I just had my baby. Every day I would get up and see like two or three people at my door who came to give the

baby his bath. People just walk in ‘oh, we just came to give the baby his bath.’ Relatives do this and close friends. Anybody who considers themselves a very serious well wisher”

Mimie explains the visits go on for one to three months, and in her case for more than six months depending on how much social support you have. While travel to their homelands for some women may not be affordable or even possible, those who stay do not always have the luxury to rest or get nursed back to health. They are up and about, as Azmera (Ethiopia) points out, doing household chores the day after they are discharged from the hospital. They are stressed from taking care of the newborn baby; lack sleep from waking in the night to nurse or feed the baby; take care of their older children while dealing with the recovery and after-effects of childbirth like pain, bleeding, and backache.

NP core area: “Parental stress and coping”

Some of the NP’s focus areas include ways of dealing with parental stress and coping.

We have talked about how NP community engagement and social support strategies need to include culturally relevant resources within African communities in Canada. These would promote the development of a support network that African immigrant women can relate to and can be met with NP goals for community engagement and social supports. Social supports that involve community members need to focus on providing the physical support from members of

African communities to help new mothers alleviate the stress they experience, and provide coping mechanisms for mothers as they raise children in Canada. The African expression “it takes a village,” which alludes to family and community support in raising children resonated with all interview participants.

Child rearing in the African traditional setting

Working and taking care of the home and children was never a job done by just the mother in an African traditional setting. With everyone in the community responsible for the child, a mother did not worry about her child(ren) because she knew everyone was looking out for them. The women all felt great isolation in Canada where “it takes a village to raise a child” is a foreign concept in Canadian culture. They felt that Canadian culture was very individualistic and did not support the communal structure that is important to the well being of African women and children. Interview participant, Azmera, speaks about communal life in Ethiopia and the isolation she feels in Canada:

“…Ever since the child was born (in Ethiopian culture) it belongs to the community. The community is responsible for that child growing up as an adult. It is your responsibility to feed anyone’s child. ‘It’s so funny when we pass through the neighbourhood coming from school sometimes you don’t even wait until you reach home to eat.’ Neighbours on the way will be like

‘you guys look so hungry can you just come in and then I’ll have something ready for you.’ You just go and eat no questions asked. Because everyone knows everyone. There’s nothing to be scared about. Everyone is responsible for everyone. So that is so different. But here, to tell you the truth, I don’t even know the next-door neighbour. I just see them at night when they’re coming out… it’s totally, totally different. Sometimes I miss that essence of being a community, and then to have trust to one another. There is no trust here. So, I miss that.” (Azmera, Ethiopia).

Child Protection Services and Implications of Trust in Community

Women like Azmera (Ethiopia) and Muna (Sudan) expressed the loneliness and isolation they felt, which, according to Azmera (Ethiopia), came down to a lack of trust. Trust was an issue that resonated with other women, including the two PHN parenting instructors interviewed for this research study. When PHN Tomi talked about the different cultures that are represented

in the NP classroom she taught, I was convinced of the contradiction that seemed to come from her position as an NP instructor, and her own beliefs originating from her African experiences.

Interviewer (I): As someone from Africa, do you observe differences regarding different cultures of people in your class?

Tomi: I teach diverse cultures. When we are teaching, I do my work. I got a policy towards all parents. Regardless of culture, race, background, and beliefs, we provide care.

I: When you have women coming from different countries, they know how to parent in different ways. Are there cultural differences in terms of how they approach the classes and how they view being taught?

Tomi: I don’t notice cultural differences because we facilitate, people share ideas, and we give information. In parenting everybody is different. You choose what works best to promote the bonding between you and your child.

The NP instructor’s response seemed to come from a place of obligation whereby she was required to maintain her professional opinion as an employee of PHAC. However, she did not hesitate to respond positively to the idea of an African parenting NP program. Her reasoning seemed to come from the unease she expressed about certain African cultural misunderstandings with Children’s Aid Society, an organization that works alongside the NP and PHAC.

I: Do you think it’s important to have a parenting class for African parents?

Tomi: That would be awesome because this program is for this community! It would be a big thing in our society to help them understand what is parenting. …From a personal perspective, is that because the Canadian’s here do not understand the context you are coming from, the words you use can be misinterpreted. For example, “I will beat you if you don’t do this.” I didn’t even remember. I never even touched the girl. It’s just an expression. Eventually,

how many kids get spanking? Very few. It’s just the culture we’re used to. You’ll be spanked if you don’t do what I want you to do. They hear “beat” and think “you are killing this child.” Also, there is fear around. “What should I say to my kids that will not be offensive to child protection services?” With the awareness to come to parenting programs we know “what else can I do.”

They learn limit setting and role modeling so they will be able to learn the way they do things in

Canada. They say, “don’t spank, don’t yell… So how do I raise these kids?” Within African context we should have awareness; get them to know how they can merge their culture and

Canadian context of raising kids together. There’s no such thing as a low voice to let their kids know that’s their natural way of talking. We are not fighting. When you are outside and talking to your child, they may misinterpret what you are saying.

There is ingrained fear and lack of trust that the NP instructor attaches to child protection services. There is especially a “do or else” threat attached to the NP when African parents attend out of obligation. While attending the NP class as a participant, I had to sign a consent form along with the other participants which pertained to the involvement of child protection services.

My understanding of the consent was that should there be any observed behavior between a parent and child that the instructors felt put a child in danger, child protection services would be alerted. This meant that a child attending the NP program could be taken from its mother or caregiver. As a matter of fact, Canadian law states, “a person who believes on reasonable grounds that a child is or may be in need of protection shall forthwith report the belief and the information upon which it is based to a society” (Rootman 1998, p. 7). It becomes necessary, therefore, for parenting programs like the NP to have written consent from its participants that indicate that should they reveal such information, it would have to be reported. Rootman’s evaluation research study of the NP program in Ontario, for example, had a phrase in its consent

form with the following statement, “your answers will be confidential, except if you told the interviewer something that made her believe a child is being abused, then the interviewer would have to report that” (1998, p. 7).

The NP is placed in a policing role as opposed to the supporting role it should give parents. Perhaps this is why the second PHN parenting instructor and interview participant,

Kobe, felt that it is important for the NP curriculum to remain within the mainstream because it is reflective of Canadian society. She felt that for African children to integrate into the Canadian system and adjust in schools and daycares, it is important that the curriculum functioned as is within the mainstream. The NP does not put into consideration African cultures, local knowledges of childrearing, or other ways of knowing but predominantly teaches White culture and, therefore, has a Eurocentric curriculum. PHN Kobe’s sentiment appears to be that the only way one can survive within a Eurocentric system is to assimilate and forget one’s own culture and identity.

Children’s Aid Societies’ impact on African immigrant and racialized communities

The numbers of African Canadian children apprehended by Children’s Aids Society do not put any confidence in the supporting role that the NP is supposed to play to help African immigrant parents. Forty-one per cent of the children and youth in the care of the Children’s Aid

Society (CAS) of Toronto are Black, yet only 8.2% of Toronto’s population under the age of 18 is Black. Comparatively, 37% of kids in the care of the Toronto CAS are White in a city where more than half of its population under the age of 18 is White (CAS, 2014). This means that racial disparities play a significant role in the NP program. That skin colour and race determine the abilities of African women to mother is nothing short of racist and a social construction of non-

European immigrant women as unfit mothers.

A look at the Ontario child welfare system and the overrepresentation of Aboriginal and

Black children in care shows that Canada’s child welfare system bears much resemblance to

Canada’s racist residential school system. On October 1-3, 2017, the Ontario Association of

Children’s Aid Societies (OACAS) was host to a gathering called “A Moment on the Path.” The gathering took place at Geneva Park and Rama First Nation where the OACAS acknowledged and apologized “for the harmful role child welfare has played historically, and continues to play, in the lives of Ontario Indigenous children, families, and communities” in a practice it called

“forced assimilation” (OACAS, 2017). In what is termed as the Sixties Scoop, OACAS acknowledged its role in extending the acts of the residential school system from the 60s to as late as the 80s. In the Sixties Scoop, the Ontario’s Children’s Aid Societies made a concerted effort, much like the residential schools, to remove Indigenous children from their homes mainly for reasons of poverty. Children’s Aid Societies (CAS) made decisions for Indigenous people as to whether they were fit parents, and often times they were not found to be fit, and their children were taken into foster care far away from home, in some cases to the US and even overseas (A

Moment on the Path, documentary film, 2018).

In an interview about African Canadian families in the child welfare sector, Cheryl

Buehler, the Director of Legal Operations for Children’s Aid Society of Toronto pointed out the bias in children’s welfare towards a similar practice of assimilation regarding African Canadian families:

I think there have been pockets of resistance connected to child welfare’s traditional

thinking that the best thing for kids in risky situations is to give them a better life by

putting them in nice, White, middle class homes. Some of that thinking lingers (OACAS,

2019).

For African immigrant families, this has led to family breakups, and denying mothers and children their cultural heritage, identity, and self-determination. The importance of children growing up within their own culture, speaking their languages, and having an identity they are proud of cannot be stressed enough. The detrimental effects of imposing a foreign and dominant culture on African immigrant women and children are evident in the broken-up families in the present child welfare system. For the NP program to build the trust of its clients, it needs to create a culturally relevant curriculum; allow African immigrant women to own the methods and ways of doing things; and support African families and communities with the resources and support networks that parents need to raise their children in their cultures. This sets up African families, children, and communities for success.

Hegemonic presumptions about African immigrant and other racialized women

When asked about the possibility of facilitating an African immigrant parenting class, interview participant PHN Kobe did not feel it could be done. She stated that getting African immigrant women in the classroom might be hard, and that in her experience with members of a certain African community in Toronto, the women chose to attend classes elsewhere other than those set in their own communities or apartment building. She explained that they did this to avoid “everyone knowing their business.” She points out that because everyone seemed to know everyone else in this particular African community, they were afraid that people within the community would find out what was going on in their lives. What they referred to as “going on in their lives” pertained to issues like child apprehensions, judge orders to attend parenting classes, or other parenting issues involving child protection services or the legal courts. The perception within the community, perpetuated by hegemonic ideologies of the unfit, racialized, poor (single) mother, is that these women are bad mothers whose parenting skills require

intervention. By attending parenting classes far from their communities, the women feel the need to avoid the humiliation of being seen as bad parents within their own communities. According to Pasternak (2010), the dominant ideological framework of neoliberalism in part informs contemporary notions of mothering while reinforcing existing patriarchal power structures (p.

173). Neoliberalism views people from disadvantaged communities as moral deviants to be blamed for their circumstances, including views of “good” versus “bad” mothering behaviour. A poor, single mother would under this perception be viewed as a moral deviant that is corrupting the “traditional” family unit within popular, mainstream North American discourse (p. 174).

The traditional cultural aspects of community where everyone knows everyone else, as stated in PHN Kobe’s interview, is evidence that this form of communality does exist within

African communities in Canada. However, rather than working to the benefit of mothers and their children in childrearing, it has been used to create distrust and fear of child welfare agencies and among members of the African communities, and to disgrace community members.

Rootman’s (1998) NP evaluation study gives further evidence of this when he interviewed eight facilitators of the program regarding its suitability for participants. Two facilitators stated that the

NP worked well when they were able to encourage parents to attend the first session (Rootman,

1998, 8). They stated that the NP was there to get the parents to come out “because of the general mistrust of agencies, people, neighbours…” (ibid).

Theme 2: Discipline

NP core area: “Nurturing and discipline strategies;” cultural misunderstandings

How do African immigrant women raise children in a culture where the standards of discipline are different from those of their host country? African families, particularly those living in low income communities and/or with low levels education are often targeted by child

protection services for acts of abuse that include spanking/hitting. For some, even threats like

“I’ll beat you,” as earlier reiterated by PHN Tomi, have warranted investigations and sometimes child apprehensions. A case reported in the Toronto Star (Contenta et. al., 2014) talks about a grandmother and landed immigrant who was charged with several “counts of assault with a weapon” and as a result of her criminal record, she lost her job as a caregiver for the elderly.

Unable to pay the mortgage, she lost her home. Her granddaughters who she had taken care of for about 10 years following their mother’s death were apprehended and taken into foster care.

The cause for all this had been her teenage daughter who, “facing suspension” at school, had told the principal that her grandmother would “kill her” were she to find out. The grandmother explained to the Toronto Star that “West Indian children, if something is going to happen, they say: ‘Oh my mother is going to kill me.’ It’s not that her mother is going to kill her. That’s how they speak.” This story illustrates the way in which cultural misunderstandings can have detrimental effects on racialized families.

African cultural views of discipline

Interviews with African immigrant women spoke to cultural practices like spanking/hitting that most felt were necessary and effective when they were growing up.

Understanding that such acts can put one in trouble with the law in Canada, some of the women felt that they are unable to control their children’s behaviour for lack of tough disciplinary action.

One of the women, however, who never got spanked growing up back home did not agree with spanking as a disciplinary method. Carmen who grew up in Egypt, a predominantly Islamic state where children in Arabic schools were disciplined by hitting or spanking, equates hitting to a lack of education. The assumption here is that Carmen is referring to a lack of Western education. Carmen talks about being raised by good parents who were educated and treated their

children well. Her father worked in an American school in Egypt while her mother worked in a

French school. Carmen says they were given time outs growing up, or they lost the privilege to go somewhere they wanted to go. “Back home in Egypt people hit their kids,” says Carmen, “not in my home.”

Most women, however, felt that Canadian punishments like reasoning with kids, time out, and sending a child to their room to think about their actions were not effective means of discipline. Twenty-eight years of living in Canada and Mensah from Egypt had not changed her mind. “I have stubborn kids,” she says. “I am a teacher assistant, so I studied how they raise kids in Canada.” Mensah was raised by a single mom after her dad passed away when she was very young. She had six siblings and felt that her mom needed to be strict, but she was loving too. She would yell or hit her with a slipper if she did something wrong, but “you knew that your mom loved you no matter,” she adds. Mensah says she is thankful that her mother disciplined her the way she did because it broke her pride so she could be obedient and listen.

Many of the women believed that the tough discipline like the spanking they received from their own parents growing up made them more disciplined and respectful. Mimie, for example, believes children should be made to understand that there are consequences to their actions, both positive and negative. Comparing her daughter’s life at school in Cameroon to life at school in Canada, Mimie says that her daughter submitted her school assignments on time in

Cameroon but not in Canada. According to Mimie, assignments did not even count as part of their exams, but students were given severe punishments like cleaning the school toilets if they did not submit their work on time. Growing up in Uganda, I performed other kinds of punishments inflicted on students like moving bricks at a construction site in the school, and

working on the school crop farm. Mimie says that her daughter got used to doing her assignments on time in Cameroon because she did not want the punishment.

Interestingly though, many of the women also appreciate that children in Canada can speak their minds without fear of punishment for talking back. Often, punishments back home were done with no questions asked. These women welcomed this kind of communication but disliked at the same time. A woman from eSwatini (Swaziland), Malla, for example, says: “here in Canada you are taught to be on the same level” with your child. In other words, you reason with your child as though they were an adult. But knowing how she disliked being silenced as a child growing up in a cultural context where “children are to be seen but not heard” (Sylvia,

Kenya), Malla explains that she likes the talking back, but dislikes it at the same time. Mvula from Malawi, another interview participant, explains the “dislike” sentiment in an experience she witnessed. Mvula talks about watching what she said was disrespectful behaviour of a teenage girl in a store in Canada who was yelling at her mother when she suggested to her what book to buy. “I felt terrible,” she says, “because as an African mother, how dare you talk to me like that?

I am paying for this. I am the parent and you are the child!” (Mvula, Malawi). Mvula believes that Canadian parents are afraid to talk to their children because they talk back and are rude

(ibid).

Interview participant Veena from Mauritius also believes that children back home are much more respectful than children in Canada but expresses the sentiment that she likes that children in Canada can speak their minds.

“When we were kids, if my mom says something, nobody says a, b, c, d. It was whatever my mom say. And even now sometimes I don’t agree with her, but I cannot even tell her which is a bad thing. But you don’t want your kids nowadays to be in this position. But this is how we

grew up. But now we are trying to change that. I want my son to talk, but I don’t want them to talk back to people” (Veena).

Many of the women feel the need for tougher discipline pointing to such examples as children talking back or insulting their parents by calling them stupid or other derogatory terms, as a result of what they feel is the permissive nature of discipline in Canada. They also had mixed feelings that came with their experiences of silencing as children growing up in Africa. To an extent, accepting of the fact that their children are growing up in a different society and culture, they are aware of the legal consequences of spanking or hitting in Canada. But they are also wary that their children’s lack of the kind of discipline and respect embedded in their cultures is detrimental to their wellbeing as racialized children and youth. That these women’s lives are encompassed by a cultural hybridity in which they recognise and embrace both Western and traditional forms of discipline shows the agency with which they live their lives, proving that they are not a passive lot waiting to be rescued.

The NP emphasizes teaching from a learner-centred approach by focussing on the needs and interests of the parents (Rootman, 1998). However, the experiences, cultural knowledges and practices of African immigrant women, are not given consideration in the NP classroom. Of interest is Rootman’s (1998) study which states that 8 facilitators (66.7%) in the NP impact study

“had not encountered conflicts with any parents’ cultural beliefs” (p. 30). This is further proof that NP facilitators are unaware of the stress and coping mechanisms that racialized women need, or if they are aware of them, they choose to ignore the realities of their lived experiences as insignificant. Rootman (1998) explains that facilitators dealt with language barriers by co- facilitating with someone who spoke Chinese and translated some of the material in NP impact evaluation study. There was no translation offered to two South Asian mothers in my NP class

who had difficulty with English. According to Rootman (1998), another facilitator was able to facilitate an NP class for a French-speaking group to alleviate language barriers. Rootman’s largest cultural group sample comprised of 10 French-Canadians (13.2%). His other cultural samples included 3 Afghan (3.9%), 1 Mexican (1.3%), 1 native, and 1 Jamaican. All other participants in the cultural category were of European descent. None were continental Africans.

It is also questionable to me that in Rootman’s (1998) NP impact evaluation study under the subtopic “multicultural issues,” he states that when those parents who did not identify themselves as ‘just’ Canadian, in other words, they belonged to other cultural groups, were asked how well

NP fitted with their culture’s ideas about raising children, “five parents (excluding the Farsi speaking respondents) provided an answer to this question” (1998, p. 19). One wonders why the

Farsi speaking women refrained from answering this question on culture despite Rootman’s claims of their satisfaction with the NP program. The evaluation study also points out that all three women were well educated, and their interview was conducted in Farsi, eliminating the possibility that they did not understand the question. Wane (2013) has stated that racialized women cannot “live or write about their oppressions from a mainstream White heterosexual point of view” and that to do this is a colonizing act that “reproduces the invisibility of the minoritized women” (xiv). Those who answered the question, Rootman reports that the “NP was consistent with their values, with the exception of spanking” (1998, p.19).

The section of Rootman’s (1998) study that looked at cultural issues where spanking in particular was identified as “the most common cultural belief” (p. 521), consisted of a majority of French-Canadian and European participants who could “joke about discipline,” (p. 352) as one parent in Rootman’s impact evaluation study puts it. White women can laugh about spanking their children, while racialized women who face racism and discrimination daily cannot let their

guards down for fear of being targeted by child protection services. Rootman’s (1998) evaluation study speaks about the NP as providing a space that is non-judgemental. African immigrant women need this space to define and speak about their realities (Wane 2013, 12) in the NP classroom without fear of being judged, silenced or labelled as bad parents, or worse, have their children apprehended. With the involvement of “cultural gatekeepers” to provide “sustainable change” in NP classes and African communities, African women need to be able to retain the values they wish to achieve through discipline by focussing on their significance without the physical aspect of hitting.

Theme 3: Respect

The NP’s key concept on being participant centred (PHAC fact sheet, 2017) maintains that adults learn best when their backgrounds and life experiences are valued and respected, and when they have a voice in what they learn. However, little or no consideration is given to the practices African women attach to respect. Yet these are very significant values that African women consider when raising their children. The women in the interview study defined respect in different forms including, respect for oneself as a girl and a young woman; respect for elders and other people; respect for family members; and respect in courtship and marriage.

Respect for oneself as a girl and a young woman: African immigrant women’s perceptions vs. Western perceptions

For interview participants in this study, growing up in cultures where girls are socialised differently from Canadian culture also means contending with the cultural differences in both societies. Yet these women’s cultural differences are not considered of relevance in parenting classes like the NP because the women are expected to learn to be more Canadian as well as

teach their children to be Canadian. African immigrant women, however, attach great value to the ways in which they were raised and continue to impart their cultural values and practices to their children. Interview participants Sylvia (Kenya) and Muna (Sudan) speak about behaviours they see in public and find disrespectful in Canada. They, for example, consider eating while walking in public, dancing, or playing on the way home from school, or children yelling at the bus stop as disorderly and disrespectful to oneself and a sign of immaturity. According to Muna, a 10-year-old child back home behaves more responsibly and is aware of her surrounding. She explains that children back home do play, but only when they get home and not on the road.

Several of the women also talked about dating at the young age of 13, 14, or even 18 as being disrespectful to oneself. In their view, a romantic relationship should lead to marriage.

This is unlike the liberal western values of courtship and dating. Muna who has lived in Canada for fifteen years still cautions her daughter about the African values of respect for oneself:

“We don’t have something called boyfriend and girlfriend. But when you have to do like this culture doing, don’t say it’s a boyfriend and then tomorrow you broke up and then you tried another one... you are like a glass. The girl is like a glass. When is broke is broke forever. You have to keep yourself safe. And the man you marry, they’re gonna respect you.” (Muna)

Interestingly, the length of time the women have lived in Canada does not seem to have much impact on their cultural values. Carmen from Egypt who has lived in Canada for 20 years reiterates Muna’s sentiment, saying that she started telling her daughter as early as 13 or 14 years of age about the criteria of the person she needed to spend her life with, besides cautioning her on the limits of dating.

“We heard but haven’t seen people do this sex before marriage. We forbid this idea. I give her the warning; this is crossing the red line. And she’s okay with that too. She believes in

what we say. We give her the chance to date ...We didn’t give her limits. It came naturally at about 22. She had met more than one and there wasn’t the right person until about 23.”

(Carmen).

Within Western culture, such traditions regarding dating are seen as old fashioned at best or backward at worst. Western ideology will portray these women’s beliefs and value as oppressive and the women as powerless and submissive. The women are seen as victims who must be rescued from the oppressive influences of family and culture (Ku et al., 2011). However,

African women make the decisions and choices about their children with the intention of helping them make what they consider are the right choices about life and sexuality. Carrying oneself in an orderly manner teaches discipline and respect, values that these women see as vital in their children’s lives. The older generation in African traditional society guided the younger generation to be responsible and to follow the practices that were valued within society. A holistic and culturally relevant community approach for parenting cannot exclude the younger generation. This approach would harness the education, lessons, and values for the younger generation that enable parents and communities to pass on values of respecting oneself that will guide the younger generation in life.

Respect for elders and other people: African immigrant women’s perspectives

All the women defined respect for elders as vital to raising their children. “Our way of bringing up children has good values of helping seniors and recognizing people when they visit your home,” says interview participant Sylvia (Kenya). Values like standing up for an adult on the bus or shaking the hand of a guest are just not done by many kids here, she adds. She says that when guests visit her home, her kids will come and shake their hand and offer them a drink of juice or tea, even when she is not home.

Respect and hospitality are values that go hand in hand as Sylvia points out in her narrative. Similarly, interview participant Mensah (Egypt) holds the same opinion as Sylvia

(Kenya), expounding on the warmth, loudness and inclusivity of Egyptian culture. Egyptians have lots of expectations from one another, and these are the standards Egyptians are used to, says Mensah. She explains the generosity in Egyptian culture so, when someone visits, they are made to feel welcome and at home. Mensah finds that these values are not a priority in Canada.

“Our family values are very strong, and we respect elders - completely different from here. If you’re anywhere and old people are standing, you stand so they can sit. You need help on the road, you find help right away. Here you can fall and someone will just say, ‘are you okay?’ Back home people will help you right away no questions asked.” (Mensah)

These cultural contradictions make for a culture clash for African immigrant women in

Canada. Azmera (Ethiopia) points out that back home when a child is disrespectful to the elders, it reflects badly on the parents. A young person was expected to help the elders and it did not matter where he/she was going. People had to witness this or else the parents were blamed.

Azmera talks about how such values of respect are in contrast to Canadian lifestyles.

These women struggle to pass on the values they deem important to their children, often without the support of community. Interview participant, Mimie (Cameroon), talks about the struggle she has passing on certain values she considers important to her children as a result of being isolated in a foreign culture:

“Sometimes I try to really talk to them and try to make them see the difference…and tell them this is the way you do things. It’s not because you think you are here that you think you can do whatever you want… this is how you ought to do it…this is the way you talk to your parents, this is the way to talk to any adult. … What is African is respect for parents and adults... you

don’t even try to do something else. A child should be respectful of parents. I notice that here people are not very respectful towards adults. Even if someone is not related to you it doesn’t really matter, you can’t talk to the person anyhow. You don’t do that (Mimie, Cameroon).

Mimie talks about the difficulties of culturally connecting to her children as a result of their being immersed in Canadian culture. She feels for example that while children are taught to do chores early in life back home, Canadian culture encourages children to see chores as child labor. She talks about the day her daughter told her about the rights of a child when she asked her to do chores. “She started telling me about child labour,” Mimie says. Mimie feels that had her daughter been in Cameroon, she would have learnt how to cook and do other chores because everyone else would be doing them, including her friends and kids younger than her. She explains that giving children responsibilities is the norm in Cameroon and that her daughter would feel out of place if she was the only one who could not cook. Mimie, however, understands this predicament, saying that here in Canada her daughter does not know how to cook because none of her friends can cook. So, while it is not a big deal here, it is back home, and therefore an uphill task trying to teach her children the cultural values she sees as important in raising children.

Community as vital in passing on values

Comparing the women’s narratives, the differences appear to lie in community. When children are isolated from their communities, those they interact with and the values they pick up will be Western and Eurocentric. This is illustrated in Azmera’s narrative, an Ethiopian woman whose family and children are connected and involved in their Ethiopian church. Although

Azmera’s three children were born and raised in Canada, Azmera is glad that they understand the

African values she grew up with. Their involvement in an Ethiopian community church has

helped nurture the African values she wishes to pass on to her children. Azmera says her daughter loves to cook and bake with her, and she’s always doing dishes. “They never say no to chores,” she says, “you never really had to force them to do it.” Azmera says her children learn from watching how hard they work for them and do not take it for granted. They have taught them about children in Ethiopia who don’t have anything and are orphans, and that because they have so much in Canada they should not take their lives for granted. Azmera started a ministry in her church that helps orphans in Ethiopia whose parents have died of AIDS and need things like school fees, uniforms, lunches, healthcare etc. Azmera’s says her children like to be involved in the fundraisers. Azmera is thankful that she has been able to pass on such values of compassion and generosity that she grew up with in Ethiopia and want her children to pass them on to their children. “My kids now understand.” She says they can’t believe that a young child of five or six years old has no parents, and they cry at the sight of homeless people. Azmera says she’s blessed that her children have such compassion. “The seed is there and it’s growing,” she says. “They know the purpose…they already have the basic things of what it means to help.”

Azmera’s is a success story of passing on values that she grew up with, but she also succeeded with the help of her Ethiopian church community in Canada which supported the efforts and values that are inherently African, of respect intertwined with compassion, generosity, and kindness. Interview participant Veena (Mauritius) speaks about how critical the values we pass on to our children are. Referencing her own experiences in Canada, she talks about people in stores who are hesitant to help someone trying to reach for something on a shelf, or are into their own “stuff they don’t even look… I see somebody struggle to get something on the shelf, I’ll just go and help them” (Veena). She also recounts a time on the highway when things fell off of a truck in front of her as she was driving. Veena was appalled that no one would

stop to make it easier for the truck driver to retrieve them, instead cars drove around them.

“These are little things that people (back home) will stop and help actually,” she says, even without thinking about it. Veena believes that because children look to their parents to learn values of compassion and kindness, if parents are not demonstrating these values, then children think this is how things should be. People here tend to think of their neighbours and everyone else when there is a major problem, says Veena, referring to 2003 North American power black- out. “But when everything is working fine, nobody needs anyone.”

These women’s narratives illustrate ways in which community is vital to teaching young people about African cultural values they want to instill in their children that are communal and not individualistic Western values. Communal values are supportive of all community members.

Strategies, therefore, that harness such communal values are more likely to be helpful to African immigrant women and their children. Parenting programs like the NP can implement community-based strategies to enable community members to provide the support women, children, and youth need in their communities. Azmera’s narrative about her children’s involvement in the Ethiopian church is an example of a religious organization within the

Ethiopian community that shows how partnerships with African community organizations can make a difference in imparting values that African parents deem important for the future of their children.

Respect for family members: African immigrant women’s perspectives on family and authority

The women defined respect for family members as important in their cultures. Interview participant, Amal (Egypt), for example, is distrusting of Canadian laws that govern children’s rights. She feels that children’s rights are given precedence over parental rights. She believes this

enables children to make decisions about their lives and futures that they are too immature to make. In Amal’s opinion, it is disrespectful for a child of sixteen to go off and make money instead of pursuing an education that will better him/her in the future. The following interview conversation articulates her stand:

“Canada, they don’t like families. They encourage people – teenagers, once you are 16, go outside. Go do whatever you like. It’s not necessary to continue your education. You can find a job and you will get your money, pay yourself and be your own, and build your future. There is no future! But they encourage this. When I go to see a doctor, I have to take permission from my daughter to know what is going on with her after she’s 16.” (Amal)

Amal argues that as a parent with a lifetime of experience, her 50 years of life experience should not be compared to that of a 15-year-old. She should, therefore, be able to guide her children instead of the government giving them the full freedom to make such choices. “It’s not respectful to the family,” she adds. Although she understands that children will leave sometime,

Amal is of the opinion that the time should come after they have finished school and found a very good career or job, and not at 16 or 17, but between 20 and 25. “Money gives you power,” she says. “So, when a 16 or 17-year-old, still a baby in my eyes, he tastes how the money feels in his hand, so why should I go to complete my education” (ibid)?

The idea of Canadian culture impressing children with money above family values is also felt by Mimie (Cameroon) who talks about the traditional values she grew up with: “…Here there is this attitude of parents giving their kids money to do stuff. I don’t even understand why. I think my kids hear it from their friends at school… after they did some chore their parents give them some amount of money, and my kid asked me about that the other day, and I am like are you for real? How much do you pay me for doing all the work I do? And they say oh no, my

friends in school say that’s what their parents do; and I say oh, you can move in with them because I am not going to do that for you.” (Mimie)

African women want to pass on ideals they consider important about community and family that go beyond monetary value. The NP should be able to address dilemmas through culturally relevant strategies in parenting classes. Interview participant, Khadija (Uganda), reiterates a similar sentiment to Amal’s regarding the authority that children place above that of their parents. According to Khadija, the reality here is that kids tend to listen to teachers or doctors more than to the parent. Back home, however, Khadija says you first and foremost respect your parent’s word before anyone else. While respect is given to everyone, Khadija emphasises that respect is given to the parent before anyone else. “My kids respect me,” she adds, but sometimes they’ll say, my teacher said A, B, C or the doctor said A, B, C… so, that’s how society is” (Khadija).

NP Values

Studies show that the NP program contributes positive changes in parents, care givers, and families. The second concept of the NP on respecting values states that it is not about changing values but rather acknowledging the diversity of values in any group. It claims to focus on examining the impact values have on the choices parents make every day and states that one of its strengths is the ability to provide parents with opportunities to explore their values and to understand how values influence parenting and other aspects of their lives. “The point of a discussion about values is to help everyone to recognize their own values, not to “convert” parents to any particular set of values” (Government of Canada, 2017). The NP program values maintain that looking closely at values offers the opportunity to question them, expand them, or affirm them. However, the NP functions within Canadian culture and institutions, which

institutions enforce the laws to be adhered to. Amal’s evaluation of her own values will not change the fact that she has to get permission from her daughter to know “what is going on with her” at the doctor’s office, neither will it change the fact that children in Canada are conditioned to place teacher’s or doctor’s authority over that of the parents.

The NP program needs to work with concrete experiences of African women. NP books use staggered statements that speak about multiculturalism and values in very superficial terms in order to sound inclusive. These statements are not based on any concrete research of racialized women or any real understanding of their cultures. Like Nolan’s (2008) study on Sudanese women’s ESL classes, NP books make generalised statements intended to encompass all cultures. Little is included or discussed in NP classes about how different racial groups experience mothering in Canada. Instead, while using a Eurocentric Canadian curriculum, NP books use drawings of women, parents and caregivers clad in diverse cultural attire as though somehow this encapsulates their cultural experiences.

Respect in courtship and marriage: African immigrant women’s perspectives vs. Western perspectives

Some women defined respect in the context of courtship or marriage relationships as very important in their cultures. Muna (Sudan), for example, explains that a man will inquire if a girl respects her brother as proof that she will respect him once they are married. She also explains that a man respecting her parents is of vital concern to her in the marriage. Muna points out that it was important to her that the man she would marry respected her mom, her dad, and her family. She also asserted that she did not want the man to love her, but to respect her. She says she loves her husband because he respects his family and is the first one to call her parents when anything happens back home.

By allowing the women to share their diverse stories in the NP classroom, their narratives become part of the NP curriculum that can be used to empower the women and their children.

The women need to feel that their cultures matter and that they themselves are visible and accepted in the dominant culture in which they live. Interview participant Soleil, for example, who was raised in a wealthy polygamous family in the Congo but left at the age of eight to live in Belgium, talks about Congolese traditions in Belgium and her courtship and marriage to a

White French man. Although Soleil used to speak Lingala, her native language, she at one time lost it and only spoke French. Her mother encouraged her to speak Lingala and having a large

Congolese community in Belgium and a lot of Congolese friends with whom she spoke Lingala helped her relearn the language. “Some were born in Belgium but had never been to Congo,” says Soleil of her friends.

“They wanted to learn the most they could. We were talking about our country in our language, listening to the music to make sure we know our country and culture without losing it.

It’s something inside of us. When we are about to get married, we know that man has to be in a traditional wedding. For my husband when he proposed to me, I said you have to do it if you really want me. We have to get married traditionally in Belgium.” (Soleil)

Soleil’s in-laws-to-be questioned her demand for their son to be married in Congolese tradition and told her to forget about her traditions. Soleil, however, felt that her culture was too important to forget as she explains: “I told them I am born in Congo; I am Congolese first.

Belgium gave me security, but I will stay in my culture. Doing that doesn’t mean I don’t respect your country or culture. But I told my husband, ‘if you don’t want to marry me in that way, forget me, because it’s really that important for me.’ I will do it for my children as well. Even the boys. You must thank the parents.” (Soleil, Congo, 2017)

Soleil’s narrative shows the tenacity with which she uncompromisingly fights to keep her

African roots, culture and traditions that exemplify respect for her parents. Western culture has always seen a dowry as objectifying the woman. In Soleil’s perspective, she explains that

Congolese culture demands bride price and gifts be offered as a sign of respect for the girl’s parents. Such views are, however, seen as primitive or backward in Western culture.

Study participants Mimie (Cameroon) and Muna (Sudan) further explain the cultural perspectives regarding dowry. According to Mimie, “you don’t pay the bride price to one person because it is taken that the society and the family as a whole took care of that child when the child was growing up.” Muna, on the other hand whose culture requires that one pay bride price in heads of cattle or cows, points out that reciprocation was at base of this cultural tradition.

Cows were seen as a source of wealth and were given to family members of the bride, including the father, the mother, and the rest of the people around. Muna explains that the cows benefitted several people so that next time when a need arose, the generosity was reciprocated, sometimes with more cows than originally given.

Significance of community

African cultural values of community, reciprocation, and generosity are ingrained in all aspects of life of African culture and teach respect. These women’s stories point to the importance of community. The Belgian Congolese community was important in Soleil’s journey as a child because it offered her a way to re-attach herself to her Congolese culture and to relearn her native language. Relearning her native Lingala was vital in creating a sense of identity and belonging within the Congolese community in Belgium. Congolese music also became a way of connecting to other Congolese youth in the community and connecting to her culture.

Speaking one’s native language is one way that parents and youth can form good communication

and understanding because African languages carry within them idioms, proverbs, values, and lessons that are unique to a group of people. For African people, identity is found in communal relationships which sustain both the older and younger generations. Development of community support and resources is a vital goal for the NP. It is imperative that the NP works with strategies that are owned by community members to create sustainable outcomes for African immigrant women and their children.

Theme 4: Male / Father (Un)Involvement

Traditional and hybridized views of African immigrant women

For these women, the experience of growing up in Africa saw the physical aspect of childrearing as a woman’s milieu. In the following narrative, Muna (Sudan) talks about the difference between here and there. She says that what she likes about Canadian culture is how the mother and father do everything together to raise the kids. Back home, she says, mothers took care of everything from sick children to school and homework even when they didn’t know how to do it right. Fathers did not interact with their children, and according to Muna, children were thankful for the couple of times a week they saw and talked to their fathers. Here, however, she says, fathers and mothers are there for their children all the time, something Muna regards with so much admiration.

Fathers are seen as disciplinarians in African traditional societies, as Azmera (Ethiopia) points out in the interview regarding her husband. Mama Ifie (Nigeria) also talks about the way in which children were cautioned to “wait till your father gets home,” as a promise of serious disciplinary action to come. Soleil’s (Congo) father was a wealthy polygamist with several wives and his children only saw him when it was their mother’s turn to be visited by him. Soleil dislikes polygamy after witnessing her mother’s life and that of her aunt’s who also was married

to a wealthy polygamist, and how they had to compete for the same man with other women. “I would never want to be in that situation,” Soleil says, “because you know your husband will get two or three or four other wives. They were competitive for their position. I have to make my husband secure doing what they teach me so they come back to me.”

Soleil, however, appreciates the life she has with her White Belgian husband, and believes culture has everything to do with it. She explains that his mother told him to cook for her, take care of the children, and do laundry. He did the laundry in Belgium and when they came to Canada. When he started work while Soleil stayed home with the baby, he taught her how to do the laundry. “My husband takes care of the children,” she says. “Whatever he can do, he does it. I really feel like a queen.” Soleil says this is something African men are not taught to do, but now that there are many more African women who are independent, they are starting to demand for men’s involvement in the home.

Similarly, interview participant Carmen (Egypt) wishes that she could have experienced motherhood like her daughter did in Canada, particularly in regard to taking parenting classes with her husband. Carmen’s daughter is married to an Egyptian man who was born in Canada.

The parents of Carmen worked in American and British institutions in Egypt, raised her with

Western disciplinary methods, and yet her parenting story is different. When she was pregnant,

Carmen says she read about motherhood, but would have liked to attend parenting classes with her husband just like her daughter did with her husband. “They have a much easier life than me,” she says, explaining how her daughter and her husband do everything together. “Men back home are not as involved,” she adds.

For Carmen, parenting classes are effective and make life easier on the mother when they are shared with the husbands, and when the husbands can be involved with childrearing. Carmen

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was a pharmacist and her husband an engineer. After leaving Egypt, they moved to Saudi Arabia where they worked in their professions. When they later moved to Canada, their degrees had to be re-evaluated and they had to sit exams for accreditation. “We used to study, and kids need help also, so it was hard,” Carmen says, referring to the fact that she had to study, take care of the children, and bathe them without the help of her husband, even though they were both studying for accreditation.

African immigrant women’s parenting skills are influenced by their traditional cultures and global experiences resulting into hybrid cultures. Social support systems that cater to the women’s affiliations and experiences are vital in supporting racialized women in the NP classroom. It is critical that racialized women’s appreciation of Western parenting practices that they deem important are determined by the women themselves and not by a Eurocentric curriculum or an instructor who presumes the needs of the women. The lack of support systems in Canada for African mothers where capitalism, individualism, and immigration split families and communities, also tear apart the fabric of the traditional family networks and expose the women to loneliness and isolation.

What is deficient in the NP program and what are the women’s needs? A culturally based curriculum and strategies that are derived from within the communities that own the methods, and which are not derived from Western individualistic ideas but communal know how. In the following chapter I offer a discussion, recommendations, and a curriculum that can be used to improve the NP program and other programs that target African immigrant women and other racialized groups in Canada.

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Chapter 5: Discussion and Recommendations

How to Improve Programs That Target African Immigrant Women in Canada

How can parenting programs like NP that target African and racialized women in Canada improve their relevance to their clientele? I draw on African Indigenous models to recommend best practices that can empower African immigrant women, their children, and communities. I also draw on lessons from the First Nations NP program and Indigenous strategies supported by the Canadian government for Indigenous communities. Firstly, I propose the use of a modified

African Indigenous strategy originating in Uganda which is derived from the senga model. I use this strategy as a guide to recreate a culturally relevant education model for the NP classroom as well as a strategy for building community supports for African immigrant women. I also borrow from other modified African Indigenous strategies used in Uganda and Kenya, as well as the NP

First Nations model. Finally, I draw from implementation strategies used by the Canadian government to support First Nations Indigenous programs for Indigenous communities.

The Senga Model

The senga approach is derived from an African traditional institution practiced among several ethnic groups in Uganda, East Africa. The word senga among the Baganda people in

Uganda is the word for aunt. Reference of senga here is specific to a father’s sister. The senga institution was the primary medium for communication on sexuality where the father’s sister

(senga), is the person responsible for the role of socializing girls into womanhood (Kilbride &

Kilbride, 1990). A comparable tradition can be found among the Venda speaking people in South

Africa where the father’s elder sister, makhadzi, plays a significant role in succession and dispute resolution in traditional leadership, and is also responsible for the initiation of girls and spiritual roles (Matshidze, 2013). Among the Igbo people of Nigeria in West Africa, a father’s sister, the

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eldest girl or first daughter in the family, Ada, also commands certain powers and roles within

Igbo culture. Interview participant, Soleil from the Congo, speaks about the maternal aunt in her culture as responsible for socializing girls into womanhood.

“Most of the time when you turn 14, 15, maybe a little bit older; from the beginning they teach you house holding. When you turn sixteen, they show you how to be a good wife, take care of your children and your husband. In that time they’ll take you to your aunty every holiday, until you turn eighteen. Sometimes they tell you to live with them for a while” (Soleil).

The senga education model was successfully implemented by the Medical Research

Council (MRC) Program on AIDS in two villages in Masaka district, Uganda. The program was implemented to meet the needs of sex education for girls by reviving the traditional ways of socializing adolescent girls into sex and marriage as practiced by many ethnic groups in Uganda

(Muyinda et al., 2004). The study proved that Indigenous practices were more likely to be accepted and effective when community members own the methods and ways of doing things. I draw from this study to create a modified and relevant version of the senga educational model for a parenting program like the NP.

The First Nations NP Program

The First Nations NP program is briefly referenced in Rootman’s (1998) NP impact evaluation study. The study gives a glimpse into a holistic approach to Indigenous culture used in the program. The First Nations NP program uses combined approaches from an Indigenous perspective and the NP curriculum, but also considers the historical, cultural, and Indigenous experiences of race for First Nations parents. According to Rootman (1998), the elders assist in parent groups and the program acknowledges spirituality like starting the class with a smudging ceremony and closing prayer. The program also uses a ‘community development approach’ to

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help build on community skills (1998, p. 19), as well as a holistic approach that includes children of all ages. Using Canadian government strategies that have been put in place to support

Indigenous communities in Canada, I draw from these strategies to propose a culturally relevant

NP program and community supports for African immigrant women.

Molefi Asante offers an alternative Afrocentric curriculum in which centering a learner means putting him or her “within the context of familiar cultural and social references from their own historical settings” (1992, p. 28). The senga model and First Nations Indigenous model centre the learner and provide educational strategies and community supports and resources for

African immigrant women and their communities. These models are a way of empowering the women so they can raise their children in communities that are supported, and which provide a sense of belonging and cultural identity, while boosting confidence in their childrearing practices.

Adapting a Modified Senga Indigenous Model to the Canadian Context

In order to benefit African immigrant women, it is imperative that the NP harness existing cultural aspects like the communality of African people to regain the trust of African families and to empower the mothers and children. The senga model can be adapted to meet different needs in African communities through the support of parenting programs like the NP.

Parenting programs are vital as the foundation for childrearing and training to help mothers raise children who are empowered through a strong cultural grounding and identity. The senga model is offered as a solution within African communities that can build human capital and resources that support mothers, children, and youth in schools. Because it is founded on an African

Indigenous institution, it is a model that African communities can relate to because it incorporates the values of communality and interdependence of social groups in African

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societies. This senga model offers a starting point for the NP program to build trust within

African communities by creating resources in mainstream institutions that support African parents and students.

Building Trust in the NP Program Using a Modified Senga Training Model

The NP program has a significant role to play in subverting the unscrupulous surveillance methods of African community members. This is because it starts with the policing of mothers in parenting classes, more specifically in racialized groups where NP instructors are forced to act as spies for CASs by reporting any behaviour of the parent/caregiver they deem threatening to the child. This takes away the means and power for NP instructors to help the parent for fear of losing their jobs should they not report the behaviour observed. This also further severs the trust between NP participants and NP instructors. It is likely that because NP instructors are trained for only four days before they are certified, they are not seen as capable of handling conflicting situations between parent/caregiver and child. For this reason, they are required to seek the intervention of a social worker. The PHAC fact sheet states that NP “facilitators are typically people who already have knowledge of parenting skills or early childhood development such as public health nurses or community workers” (2017, p. 2).

The Skrypnek and Charchun (2009) impact evaluation study similarly states that when the NP program was first introduced in Canada, public health nurses and paraprofessional community workers were trained to facilitate the program. The study further mentions that former program participants can be facilitators since NP “does not adhere to an expert model

(2009, p. 13).” Yet another PHAC factsheet states, “you do not need to be an expert in parenting to facilitate a Nobody’s Perfect program” (2015,p. 2). This information on the facilitation of the

NP program suggests that the training required to be an NP instructor is not considered expert

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knowledge on parenting. For this reason, NP instructors would not be expected to handle conflicting situations in the classroom. Yet the Skrypnek (2009) evaluation study states in its facilitator feedback that facilitators reported a need for more training in specific areas like conflict resolution, meaning that facilitators likely encounter conflicting situations in the classroom.

In my NP class, I got into an argument with a fellow classmate over a question the co- instructors had asked about how to treat a child who is throwing up or has diarrhea. My Latina classmate suggested giving the child oral rehydration salts (ORS) bought at the pharmacy, while

I gave an alternative for homemade oral rehydration therapy (ORT). My classmate responded to my answer by saying that my method was backward, the kind she saw women use back home.

An argument ensued between us as the instructors looked on, seemingly unaware of how to resolve the situation. I ended the argument to avoid disrupting the class, and the instructors resumed without comment on the debate. I am not sure why they failed to intervene. I wondered if the instructors’ lack of intervention was because they could not speak to homemade ORT because they did not know, or that they were avoiding conflict. I did not notice until much later that the unit on treatment for diarrhea in the NP Body book (pp. 50-51) had a homemade recipe in the footnote section next to the i-symbol (p. 52). The i-symbol in the NP books is the space where the reader is directed to find more information about a topic. In this section on treatment of a child who is vomiting or has diarrhea, they offer a recipe, stating that one can make their own ORS if they do not have any on hand or cannot get to a drug store.

NP Facilitator Training Using a Modified Senga Training Model

Considering that NP instructors may not feel confident to handle conflict in the classroom, it is probable that NP facilitators feel stripped of the ability to help their clients in the

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likely situation that a parent/caregiver is caught in a conflicting position involving a child.

Summoning of a CAS social worker can be stressful for both the caregiver and other NP participants witnessing the event. Furthermore, the NP makes assumptions that its clients (and perhaps instructors) are inept and unable to resolve parenting problems. In line with the NP books on the Mind (PHAC, 2016), Safety (PHAC, 2016, and Body (PHAC, 2016) which speak to the child’s growth, health, illness, thinking and learning, as well and injury prevention, the

Peterborough County-City Health Unit (2005) NP evaluation study states that the NP program

“had no impact on parents’ knowledge about child development” (2005, p. 16). It was also established in the Rootman et al., (1998) and Vanderplaat (1989) studies that:

Although Nobody’s Perfect seems to increase parental knowledge around safety issues

and children’s health in general, there is no objective evidence that Nobody’s Perfect

increases parental knowledge about accident situations or of children’s illnesses and what

to do when children are ill. It seems that parents entering the program know how to

identify and respond in accident situations and with children’s illnesses so that there are

no noticeable increases in these areas. (Skrypnek, 2009, p.6).

One does not need to be a parent but just a reasonable human first to recognize, identify, and respond to accident situations. It is quite absurd that NP participants are perceived as unknowledgeable when it comes to taking care of their children. The Skrypnek study further states that, “parents’ abilities to identify and react to children’s emotional needs six months after completing the program seemed to be no different from their abilities at the time they began the program” (2009, p. 6). Such statements illustrate the stereotypes and racist assumptions that poor people or immigrants from non-European cultures do not know how to take care of their children. Sofia Villenas’ (2001) ethnographic study of immigrant Latina mothers in a rural south

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settlement of North Carolina affirms the racist assumptions of racialized immigrant women made in such statements. Villenas (2001) argues that mainstream agency professionals map cultural differences in mothering onto a Third World/First World binary with all its associated colonial constructs like backwardness versus advanced practices. Villenas (2001) mentions Carmen, an interview participant in her study who was very much respected by other Latina mothers in Hope

City who often left their children in her care. However, mainstream social service professionals had a hard time honoring the intelligence and good mothering skills of this illiterate and poor woman. Carmen responded by explaining that it is common sense for everyone to learn by watching, and that raising a family too is common sense. She asserted that it is not hard to educate children when a parent gives them a good base from the beginning and uses common sense. She also explained that she was able to give her children an education and was very intelligent and resourceful despite her illiteracy.

That child welfare agencies do not trust racialized women to raise their own children is not only detrimental to racialized communities who are deprived of the ability and joy of parenting, but it is also detrimental to the lives of the children and youth in these communities.

Women feel isolated because they are labelled bad mothers and may feel rejected in their own communities that ought to support them. The NP program needs to work from the women’s standpoint. Peteet (1997) speaks about the necessity to “locate the position from which women engage in mothering” so as to acquire a more empathetic perspective about the unknown “other.”

An NP program for African immigrant women, therefore, would be more effective working from an African Indigenous model that incorporates the communal structure African peoples have traditionally utilized, and that has supported women through mothering and childrearing.

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The senga model was able to overcome trust issues through its training process that involved making the community aware of the need to establish an appropriate source of sexual health information for adolescent girls. A similar training process for the NP would involve making the community aware of the need to create a culturally relevant African parenting program. The criteria for choosing the sengas (aunts) who would help the girls in the original model was established based on the choice made by adult women and adolescent girls in the community. The adult women made choices based on authority as six of the women chosen had some kind of leadership role in the community, and the adolescent girls had used accessibility and approachability as their main criteria. Eleven adult women were selected, 10 of whom had been on both the lists of the girls and women. A curriculum for training was developed with the main topics being HIV/AIDS, STDs, talking about sex, condom use, family planning, partner education, partner reduction, delayed first sex, techniques for avoiding unwanted or risky sex, treatment seeking for STDs, traditional sexual experiences, and counselling skills (Muyinda et al., 2004). The senga model, although based on an Indigenous institution, was modified to include present day problems and solutions. The topics taught are also reflective of modern day

African and traditional society.

NP facilitation would require a similar approach in which sengas would be chosen according to the original model, that is, choosing training instructors based on leadership in the community, and accessibility and approachability. Training for NP instructors would utilize topics in the regular NP program by modifying particular cultural aspects for different African groups. Women would, for example discuss topics on food and nutrition relating to their own cultures, use role playing specific to their cultures, and discuss both modern methods and traditional methods of doing things. It is evident that these global women encompass hybridity

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by embracing aspects of different cultures that they utilize in order to make the best of the opportunities available to them and their children. Moreover, the facilitators from different cultural groups would also use their own cultural experiences and knowledge to hold discussions in the classroom.

The Legal System, Schools, and Building Trust in African Communities Using a Modified

Senga Model

Due to racial discrimination, there is often a zero-tolerance policy for misunderstandings, mistakes, misdemeanors, or infractions imposed on racialized groups. This leads to a distrust and fear of the legal system within African communities. Sylvia’s narrative, an interview participant in my study from Kenya expressed this sentiment:

“It all just starts with you as a mother knowing what’s in the world. And once you know what is out there, just put it on the table black and white and let your child think you’re racist.

Let your child think you are primitive. Because my children used to think I’m racist (laughs) because I used to tell them, you are a Black boy, you are Black and you are boys. So, all your friends are White. Your friends are very innocent because kids are very innocent, but you don’t know what their parents are thinking about you… I’m telling you about White people not because I hate them. But there’s one thing I know: because Black boys have gone to jail, Black boys have been in trouble. Their record is messed before they are 18 because you are hanging out with a White girl and somebody thinks you are hanging with their girl, and they’ll just sue you and you go on record. So, I’m not being a racist, I’m just trying to show you what is out there.”

Sylvia’s narrative as an African mother who has raised two boys in North America: for seventeen years in the United States and for five in Canada expressed fear and distrust of the legal system. The policing and zero tolerance policy of Black students in schools are also well

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documented. A Toronto Star report states, for example, that a disproportionate rate of Black student suspensions was traced through a board analysis survey that showed the problem pointed to the provincial zero-tolerance school disciplinary regime at the time whose data connected race and suspension rates (Toronto Star, 2013). A Toronto District School Board (TDSB) 2006 survey also showed that African Canadian (Black) and Aboriginal students were suspended at much higher rates than students of other backgrounds. Black students were three times more likely to be suspended than White students in the 2006-7 school year. Black students make up only 12% of high school students in the Toronto Public Board (32,000 students), but they account for 31% of all suspensions. White students on the other hand, account for 29% of suspensions, but make up for about one-third of the entire student population.

Furthermore, a Toronto study by Salole that examines the relationship between education and the criminal justice system for marginalized and racialized youth discusses the approaches in which privileged youth are governed through, “gentle strategies and support from school, families and social services” (2015, p. 127). Marginalized youth on the other hand are governed

“through more punitive and disciplinary strategies resulting in the perception that there is a distinct absence of support for them” (ibid). According to Salole (2015), for African youth coming from disadvantaged homes and communities, school provides stability, inclusion, and a pathway out of an “at risk” life, thus protecting them from involvement with the criminal justice system. For other youth, however, surveillance and disciplinary practices leave them feeling alienated from the education system. This could lead to potential long-term negative outcomes of involvement with the criminal justice system. Once these youths have a criminal record, they continue to face barriers to accessing education, despite evidence that education protects youth

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from a lifestyle of crime (Salole, 2015). Salole’s study shows how public schools have lost their grounds as safe havens for struggling minority students.

The senga model implemented in the rural Ugandan community worked by interacting with both traditional and modern social institutions. These included schools where girls were sent to receive information about sex; churches where church leaders sent young women preparing for marriage to sengas for counselling regarding the traditional aspects of marriage and home management; and to hospitals or other relevant institutions where sengas referred people whose problems they could not handle as sex counsellors for better attention. It is imperative that an NP communal parenting model and curriculum also incorporate an African communal legal system through which conflicts in parenting can be resolved before they are sent to the child protection services and/or the law courts.

“Traditional” Counsellors

In order to build trust within the African communities where people do not want

“everyone knowing their business,” and so that people do not feel judged, “traditional” counsellors are a viable solution to building strong African communities in Canada.

“Traditional” counsellors would be members of African communities including elders, social workers, youth workers, teachers, church ministers, nurses, and lawyers, etc. African children and youth spend most of their time in schools. Many child welfare cases are handled through schools, albeit through a predominantly Eurocentric system. A holistic approach to an NP program for African immigrant women and their children should include a support network that helps African children succeed in school. This means that cases involving children and youth should first and foremost be directed to African “traditional” counsellors and other organizations like cultural associations and religious organizations who would work collectively to provide the

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services needed to help students. The “traditional” counsellors would also work collectively through referrals with other organizations like religious institutions, health organizations, hospitals, and schools.

Supports Through Community Religious Organizations

Interview data showed that religion played a very significant role in African immigrant women’s lives. The senga model specifically worked with churches and schools by referring adolescent girls to the sengas to deal with issues related to sex education. Due to taboos and sensitivity around topics on sex, school teachers were abashed about teaching such topics, so sengas were a welcome addition to the sex education curriculum. Taking a leaf from the senga model, the NP program would greatly benefit African immigrant women and children through partnerships with African social organizations and religious places of worship. A study by Sinela

Jurkova points out that ethnic organizations are a source of social capital. Immigrants use these ethno-cultural organizations “to nurture and express their identity and values, gain social acceptance, achieve their personal goals and affect their sense of belonging,” (2014, p. 23).

Another study by Agyekum and Newbold (2016) underscores the therapeutic impact and importance of religious places on the wellbeing of Ghanaian and Somali immigrants in

Hamilton, Ontario. The Agyekum and Newbold study found that places of worship “are significant for physical health, social, emotional, spiritual, mental and general quality of life amongst immigrants” (2016, p. 674). Culture and religion (Christianity and Islam) play a significant role in African immigrant women’s lives. The narratives of women in my research study show different ways in which culture and religion intersect, the significance they held for these women while growing up in their countries of origin, and their importance and role in

African women’s lives in Canada.

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Seventy-nine-year-old, Mama Ifie (2017) from Nigeria, an interview participant, explains that growing up, her father was the choir master at the church in her village, so he shunned many

African traditional practices, which is why she was never a part of them. She also talks about girls and boys being sent to church to learn about the rites of passage from a Christian perspective. The priests and their wives taught girls and boys about responsibilities and puberty at church. Another woman, Mvula (Malawi) also an interview participant, says: “My parents were pastors, so I grew up in more of a religious (Christian) environment. We only came in contact with (African) traditions when we visited my grandfather in the village.”

In Islamic Egypt where religion, culture, and education intertwined, interview participant

Carmen (Egypt) pointed out that in public schools, girls did not play with boys. Girls and boys went together to school until middle school where they were separated and went to all-girls or all-boys schools. In Sudan where Muna grew up as Christian in the Muslim North, she recounts her school days going to a Muslim school:

Muna: …I went Grade 1, Grade 2 because my dad was working, had nice work, and when the government broke the housing, they broke our housing area, we moved to a far place.

This place no school, no anything, only Muslim school. This happened in the North. We had to go to Muslim school.

I: Are you Muslim or Christian?

Muna: I am Christian, but I went to Muslim school

I: And you learned Islam?

Muna: I learned everything. When you go to school you have to wear hijab, I have to. I wearing hijab. I have to learn everything, I do it. But when they come the religion, they separate us from there, that the good thing they do. We do religion every Friday, different school, like

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sister school, we go there for religion on Friday. It’s up to you. You want to stay and read the

Qur’an; you can stay. You don’t have to stay. You want, you can stay outside.

For African immigrant women, religion is often a part of their lives and cannot be separated from culture. With colonial rule, Christianity was exerted through missionaries who looked upon African traditions and religions as savage and sinful. Most Africans would eventually convert to Christianity or Islam. Those who converted to Christianity for the most part discarded aspects of culture they deemed “savage and sinful,” replacing them with Christian values. In the long run, Christianity and African cultures intermingled. Azmera, a woman from

Ethiopia and interview participant, says:

“In Ethiopia you can’t separate orthodox church from Ethiopian culture. They go side by side. It’s mixed. The community is involved in the church. Its (rites of passage) are more focused on boys. When boys… become eighteen or twenty-one, not sure exactly, they go to church and are given a book on rules.”

When asked about how a new mother is celebrated, interview participant Mimie from

Cameroon talks about an official celebration called bonne house, and the implications around

African traditions and Christianity.

“During the bonne house they make some declarations on the baby, so the baby grows up… Some do traditional incantations to say this child will grow up in the way the ancestors want. But now because some people are not really attached to their traditions, they no longer do those ones, but that actually was what that ceremony was meant to be. Because of Christianity there has been such a mix, they just come home and pray for the child. Sometimes the church people come to do that thing - they visit and pray for the child and eat and go. They used to rub some things of on the child’s head to say the child will always have favour, and the child’s

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forehead will like glow every where the child goes, and people will favour this child. In my tradition it’s taken that when you have a glowing forehead it’s like favor. They would rub all those things to say this child is going to have good luck in life. Everywhere you go things will open for you, and they will lift up the child and clap etc. With Christianity, they just come and pour olive oil and say we are anointing the baby. So, the Christians just happily switched the thing over” (Mimie).

These women illustrate ways in which the cultural and religious beliefs they grew up around are significantly connected to their lives. So, while culture continues to play an important part of these women’s lives, religion is just as important. Using a holistic model that incorporates

African cultures through African social groups and religious organizations alongside parenting programs like the NP would go a long way in creating supports for African immigrant women.

Ontario Supports for the NP and African Communities

Similar to Ontario’s strategy for Indigenous communities, the Ontario government and the PHAC that provides NP services to its clients should consider a comprehensive funding strategy for African immigrant families. The objective of a comprehensive funding strategy, similar to the Ontario Indigenous Children and Youth Strategy (2017), would help African immigrant families and communities. This would aim to:

• transform Ontario’s relationship with African children and youth, and their families.

• enhance African jurisdiction and control for children and youth services.

• prioritize preventative services for African children and youth that are culturally

appropriate in order to build a high-quality integrated services network that supports

African children and youth.

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• enable government and African service providers to track and evaluate their work in

implementing the strategy.

NP evaluation studies have indicated that there is a need for funding to run regular NP programs, including the NP Indigenous program (Rootman, 1998; Skrypnek, 2009). A successful parenting program like NP for African immigrant parents would require initiative from the

Ontario government for a comprehensive funded strategy. This will ensure African immigrant mothers and their children have access to more culturally appropriate community supports and improved outcomes implemented and evaluated in close partnerships with existing African organizations, other relevant organizations, and community members. Following the Indigenous

African senga model, an NP African parenting program would train facilitators, allow community members to own the methods of childrearing, and utilize a “traditional” justice model with community members as case workers.

An organization called Aboriginal Family and Community Care State Secretariat (AbSec)

(2018) in New South Wales, Australia, provides services for Aboriginal families and communities. The organization’s approach and vision to community support and resources is to

“mitigate risk factors or vulnerabilities thereby reducing the need for more intensive or invasive interventions.” The point is to make sure that Aboriginal children and youth live in “safe,”

“thriving communities,” “and are raised strong in spirit and identity, with every opportunity for lifelong wellbeing and connection to culture surrounded by holistic supports” (AbSec, 2018).

This is a vision that the NP and Ontario government ought to have in order to support African communities. The NP model ought to acknowledge the right of African people to “develop their own processes and systems in meeting the needs of African children and families,” and to acknowledge and respect the diversity and knowledge of African communities (AbSec, 2018, p.

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2). An NP program modeled after a modified senga strategy would, therefore, act with professionalism and integrity, and strive for quality to provide culturally responsive services and supports for African families (AbSec, 2018, 2), and aim for African self-determination through

African community-controlled organizations (AbSec, 2018, p. 4). It would use “locally tailored approaches” that build on community strengths (ibid). It would also utilize the skills of African practitioners as “traditional” counsellors to deliver “culturally enriched services that are aligned with the needs and expectations of” African parents and communities (ibid). Finally, partnerships with “other relevant service providers” like churches and national cultural associations would

“support parenting skill development and the implementation of these skills into practice within the family context” (ibid).

NP Core Area – “Problem Solving” and Culturally Relevant Resources

Often activities in problem-solving in the NP classroom are resolved with solutions of a universal standpoint for all women. In the NP class where I was a participant, for example, the subject on nutrition and what best to feed your child was supplemented with an activity. In the activity each participant had to use a variety of toy foods provided to create a balanced meal on a plate. This classroom comprised of: Africans from three regions, including Northeast Africa,

East Africa, and West Africa; Caribbean and a Latina parents; and South Asian mothers. The assumptions was that we all make and eat the same kinds of foods provided in a dominantly

Western culture.

African immigrant women make connections and memories with their cultures through the preparation of staple foods from their homelands. They celebrate their national holidays, festivals, and special events that exist in their countries of origin, and maintain their cultural rituals in respect to birth, naming, rites of passage like puberty rites and death. All these events

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are often catered with African cultural dishes. Large urban cities like Toronto boast African grocery stores and restaurants. African foods also make it into the country through imports as well as through travels of relatives and friends who bring local food items from their homelands.

Furthermore, food purchased from regular stores is prepared in the cultural styles of African recipes, sometimes with modifications. For an NP classroom to make its content relatable to its racialized clientele, it cannot claim a universal standpoint of a Eurocentric curriculum. This is further evident in the Toronto Star (Contenta et. al., 2014) which reported that a Children’s Aid

Society (CAS) child protection worker received a call because a child was sent to school with roti. The teacher believed that the “popular Caribbean bread usually filled with goat or chicken curry was not healthy or sustainable for the child.” African, Caribbean, and other immigrants of non-European descent are perceived as unable to make the right food choices for their children and assumptions are made about their illiteracy regarding food value and nutrition. This is also evident in a study conducted by the Toronto District School Board (TDSB). The resulting

Census Fact Sheet (2011-12) examines the relationship between grade 7-12 students eating habits and nutrition. The study takes into consideration student and family demographic factors including gender, ethno-racial background, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, parental presence, and parental place of birth. The findings that specifically looked at parental place of birth are particularly interesting as they showed that students from immigrant families with both parents born outside of Canada were less likely to eat fruits and/or vegetables or to consume milk/dairy products on a daily basis during the school week, compared to students with one or both parents born in Canada. My assumption in the TDSB study is that their definition of

“immigrant” references racialized groups as opposed to immigrants of European origin. The study reported that only 54% of secondary school students from immigrant families ate fruit

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and/or vegetables daily. This is in comparison to 65% of students with one foreign-born parent and 67% of students with Canadian-born parents. Findings on the daily milk consumption or dairy products found only 60% consumed milk or dairy products daily compared to 72% of students with one foreign-born parent and 76% of students with Canadian-born parents (2012, p.

4). This evidence shows that Canadian-born parents are considered to make Canadian choices which are the better choices.

The assumption that racialized immigrants do not know the nutrition value of fruits, vegetables, and milk is not only ignorant, but also assumes that countries from the southern hemisphere do not grow fruits, vegetables or have cows to produce milk; and that somehow these food products must be unfamiliar to them. The problem is likely that new immigrant families, more specifically those living in marginalised communities face poverty and settlement-related challenges. Racialized groups including newcomer families experience disproportionate rates of poverty compared to non-racialized groups (Wilson B., 2018). Statistics from the 2018 Toronto

Child and Family Poverty Report states that children who were born in Canada and whose parents were born in Canada (3rd generation or more), the poverty rate for racialized children is twice that of non-racialized children (22.8% vs. 10.7%). First generation newcomer children have extremely high rates of poverty, including staggering rates within the Arab (70.5%), West

Asian (68.3%), Korean (57.5%) and Black (48%) communities. Children who are of West Asian

(44.4%) and Black (42.1%) backgrounds have very high poverty rates even when they were born in Canada and have parents who were born in Canada (3rd generation or more).

This means low income families, newcomer racialized families, and those living in poverty cannot afford to buy certain foods or enough nutritious foods because they come at a hefty price, and not for a lack of knowledge of their nutritious value. The NHS Statistics Canada

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Survey (2014) showed that in “2013, 21.5% of the tens of thousands of children under age 14 relying on food banks in Toronto went hungry at least one or two days a week, an increase of 2.7 percentage points from 2007.” The 2011 World Bank study on nutrition and early childhood development showed that inadequate nutrition impacts children’s capacity to learn, and behavioural and cognitive development.

Western ideological assumptions of racialized immigrant groups cannot become the focus in such studies as the TDSB’s, but rather, efforts should be made to address the material realities of immigrants. It is presumptuous to assume that Canadian foods are ideally what immigrants should aspire to, and that choices about food nutrition need to be made for racialized groups.

This is precisely the NP’s standpoint, as well as other institutions like schools where global

Southern cultural foods are deemed innutritious compared to Canadian foods. It is important that the NP recognize that cultural differences matter when creating an effective program that racialized women can relate to. A story covered in the University of Toronto Magazine titled,

Lentil Soup for the Soul (Gibson, 2019) features the story of nutritionist and registered dietitian,

Nazima Qureshi, who advocates that “being a healthy eater doesn’t mean giving up your own cultural foods.”

Qureshi’s father was diagnosed with diabetes when she was 15 years old. When her mother took him to a nutritionist “who was oblivious to their traditional South Asian diet,” the nutritionist advised that he should eat “bland dishes such as plain grilled chicken and salad.” The family gave up their cultural dishes “in favour of the recommended North American meal plan.”

The fried pakoras, chicken biryani, the parathas and ghee were no longer part of the family menu. Unable to maintain the “state of deprivation,” Qureshi’s mother would finally figure out

“how to healthify their favourite recipes: using whole wheat flour in her homemade rotis;

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decreasing the amount of cooking oil; adding more veggies; and swapping out white rice for brown.” In Qureshi’s words:

“In the long term, people crave their own cultural foods and what they’ve grown up with and what they’re comfortable with,” says Qureshi. “So, if they don’t learn how to make those dishes healthy, they won’t benefit.”

This experience inspired Qureshi to pursue nutrition so she could help people in her community. She currently counsels Muslim women on healthy lifestyles like “healthy eating habits and self-care.” She posts recipes “that are a mash-up of North American and South Asian favourites” on her food blog and Instagram page.

Learning from Qureshi’s story on ways in which the NP and other parenting programs can work with women’s knowledges of their cultural foods is a much more beneficial strategy to the NP program’s curriculum on food and nutrition. NP support networks can be effective if built within African communities, and with culturally relatable resources that provide communal support in different areas like nutrition, child rearing, and help for new mothers in communities.

Moreover, Qureshi’s story attests to racialized women’s hybridity and the agency to adapt to their new host country without losing the cultural practices that they value.

Discipline: Alternative Methods

African women’s disciplinary cultural practices are targeted for intervention by

Children’s Aid societies. How can parenting programs like NP help African immigrant women meet the challenges of disciplining their children without silencing their experiences? There are controversial cultural practices, as well, like female circumcision which have landed women in jail (National Post, 2002). In his book, Facing Mount Kenya (1965), Kenyatta alludes that such rites of passage were elaborate celebrations which encompassed educational, social, moral and

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religious values apart from the actual operation. So, besides the ritual itself, the significance of the female circumcision lay in the lessons taught to the younger generation in African communities. This is the emphasis that ought to be put on cultural practices that are outlawed in

Canadian society without losing the cultural values and lessons attached to them. Alternatives for female circumcision are now being implemented in countries like Kenya and Uganda.

In one ethnic group in Kenya, the alternative rite is called “ntanira na mugambo”

(circumcision through words). Here, young women go through a weeklong program of counseling, training, and education, which culminates with a day defined as the “coming of age day.” Members of the community join to celebrate the occasion with music, dance, and feasting.

Girls are secluded and taught about their bodies like “anatomy and physiology, sexual and reproductive health and hygiene, and are counseled on gender issues, respect for adults, how to improve their self-esteem, and how to deal with peer pressure.” After a week of the rituals and celebration, the girls are given presents, granted special wishes, and a certificate (Chelala, 2018).

Similar celebrations take place in Uganda where “cultural gatekeepers” like grandmothers, elders, and women who traditionally hold certain powers have been included to lead the fight against female circumcision within their communities. Elders are particularly seen as responsible for passing on knowledge across generations, and therefore their authority is considered to promote “sustainable change” led by the local communities themselves (PML Daily, Feb. 22.

2019).

Practices considered unlawful in Canada, including disciplinary actions likely to get a parent in trouble, can also retain the rigor of all the cultural values embedded in them without the physical aspect of hitting/spanking. Discipline, for example, can be imparted by talking to the child. Study participant Mvula (Malawi) discusses how, growing up, her father never hit her or

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her siblings. She recounts that he would sit them down and talk to them so that when he was done, they felt so much remorse that they preferred that he had spanked them instead. Correcting the child is another way that interview participant, Mama Ifie (Nigeria) advocates. She explains that growing up in the Eastern part of Nigeria, “if you see a child doing wrong and you don’t correct that child, I know that you are a wicked person. You have to!” She expounds that the word for this is “Nwora,” meaning “everyone’s child” or “everyone has the child.” Interview participant, Azmera reiterates that Ethiopian culture requires that everybody discipline the child.

“That child from day one belonged to the community. The community is responsible for the child becoming an adult. You discipline the child on the way. You are blamed if the child is not well mannered” (Azmera).

African traditional communities depended on everyone raising the child. Raising the child also meant that extended family members, neighbours, and the community provided guidance and discipline in the absence of the parent. Study participant, Malla (eSwatini/

Swaziland), talks about going back home to visit family with her 9-year-old son at the time. She explains that having to run several errands, she appreciated the communal nature of childrearing.

“It helped me know that I’m not the only one watching him. It’s easy for him to know that you don’t behave only when I’m there; you have to behave anywhere you go. I like that it’s structured” (Malla).

When Global News (2018) reported a story of an 8-year-old girl walking her dog, it began its report with the same admired African expression that is also used in the title of Hillary

Clinton’s book (1996), It Takes a Village. The story made headlines because a neighbour who saw the girl and thought she was five, called the police and child protection services. The story received mixed comments, including those which shamed the mother of the girl online.

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The broadcaster reported, “They say it takes a village to raise a child, but sometimes those villagers can take things too far” (ibid). African concepts which may be admired in theory in the Western world like “it takes a village,” are in fact not given much consideration in the

Western world. That the first thing a neighbour would think of is to call the police and child protection services means that a child’s life could be jeopardized by removing her from her parents. That the neighbour did not approach the child to make sure she was alright, illustrates the Western world view as individualistic with surveillance and policing methods that do not connect to or reflect African cultural values of community. While the girl walking her dog was

White, one cannot overlook the greater odds stacked against racialized children, particularly

Indigenous and African/Black children who make the largest groups of children in foster care.

In African traditional cultures, oral literature was used to teach the younger generation and to pass on life lessons. Proverbs, poetry, and stories were told to teach right from wrong.

Today, oral literature has been passed on throughout the diaspora through the artistry of African griots in the form of Hip hop. Hip hop as a form of oral literature traces its roots in the artistry of

African griots who date back to eighteenth century Africa. When Somali-born Canadian Hip hop artist K’naan first came to Canada, he got into a fight at school for being called names because he was different. When his mother was called to the school, she explained to him that he should use his words rather than his fists. In his children’s book titled, When I get older, The Story

Behind Wavin’ Flag (2012) K’naan talks about the memory of his grandfather in Somalia who was a great poet, and how he had written him a poem that sustained him while in Canada: “When

I get older, I will be stronger, they call me freedom just like a waving flag” (2009). K’naan says that he turned to poetry and music like his grandfather had taught him and learned to use music to express his feelings. For many African youth, music and poetry, like the spoken word and rap,

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are ways that help African youth deal with the everyday world where they deal with racism on a daily basis. Like K’naan, music and poetry can be a way of vetting anger. This strategy whose history lies in the oral traditions of African culture can be used as part of a strategy in the modified holistic NP curriculum to involve youth in its program. Chapters Six and Seven suggest a curriculum and activities for a holistic NP program model that includes the whole family.

Finally, chapter eight provides a brief summary and conclusion, as well as future directions for the study.

Male/Father (Un)involvement

Within African communities where most men look at the role of childrearing and domestic work as a woman’s milieu, it is important that NP community development supports and resources involve “cultural gatekeepers” to help change cultural perspectives that do not advance African women’s lived experiences within African communities in Canada. These perspectives are also pervasive among religious groups and organizations like churches, as well as other African cultural organizations. Sharing parenting and domestic tasks in the home is vital to supporting mothers in African communities. For mothers and children to succeed, paternal involvement is paramount in building relationships and passing on values and important lessons to children.

Interview participant Azmera (Ethiopia), who grew up without ever seeing her father enter the kitchen, says the trend is changing in Ethiopia as more young men are starting to cook, thanks to Hollywood movies. The senga model implemented in Uganda was not always popular among men. As a tool for sex-education for girls, however, it also enabled boys to seek advice from the sengas as well as to get condoms that the sengas provided. Men who were adamantly against the idea of their daughters visiting sengas began to warm up to the concept when they

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noticed positive changes in their daughters, like the greater respect they gave to their mothers and a change in demeanor and approach to life. It is imperative that parenting programs like the

NP utilise African models that are based on cultural practices owned by communities. When

African fathers support mothers in child rearing activities and domestic chores, mothers will be better placed to handle stressful situations with the father’s support. Children will also build confidence, belonging, and identity through father/male involvement in their homes and communities.

Summary

This chapter explored the different themes embedded in the analyses of African immigrant women’s interviews. Four themes emerged that included community, discipline, respect, and father/male (un)involvement. By identifying gaps in the NP program and NP evaluation studies, the chapter explored the themes through experiences of African immigrant women and motherhood in Canada. It proposed ways to address the gaps and improve programs like the NP that target African immigrant women. The chapter shed light on African cultural values and practices that the women maintain when they come to Canada and highlighted a more radicalised and global woman with agency who embraces cultural hybridity by choosing aspects of other cultures she deems progressive in aiding her success and that of their children. This chapter further proposes the use of African Indigenous knowledge systems as support networks within African communities, the NP program, and other institutions like schools and organizations that affect the lives of women and their children. In the following chapter is a suggested pull-out of a culturally relevant curriculum characterized by a holistic approach to the

NP parenting program.

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Chapter 6: Curriculum for a Culturally Relevant and Holistic NP Parenting Program for African Immigrant Women

Background

This curriculum is based on a wider research study in which 17 African immigrant women in the Greater Toronto Area were interviewed, 2 of whom were or had been parenting instructors. All 17 women came from 12 African countries of the Eastern, Western, Northern and

Western regions of the continent. These countries represented in the study included: Uganda,

Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Congo, Mauritius, Malawi, eSwatini (Swaziland), Cameroon, Nigeria,

Ghana, and Egypt.

The findings of the study showed that the NP parenting program is very Eurocentric in nature and does not consider the cultural knowledges and values that African women deem important to raise their children in Canada. The women’s voices are silenced because their cultural knowledges are deemed backward and, therefore, unusable in the NP parenting program.

Findings from the research study also show that African immigrant women embrace cultural hybridity, and in fact do exert agency by making choices from African and Western cultures to advance their success and that of their children. It is imperative, therefore, that the NP program be modified to include the women’s cultural knowledges and values, and support

African community resources and networks that empower mothers.

Objectives of the Program

The creation of this program starts with a vision to tell a better story and to use culturally relevant teachings that uplift and inspire. This program is designed to meet the learning needs of

African immigrant women within their communities. The objective is to nurture the women’s sense of identity by centering their cultural knowledges alongside the NP mainstream program.

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This will enable the women to assert their rights and self determination. To reach these goals, the

NP program should be founded on the women’s cultures, histories, heritage, and spirituality.

Spirituality refers to their expressions of faith, values, and beliefs.

The key concern in the NP program is the need to consciously affirm African immigrant women’s cultures by not silencing them but by including their voices, cultures and histories so they can raise their children with the cultural values they wish to impart to them.

The practical realities of implementing such early childhood programs like the NP demand collaborations and partnerships amongst and between African communities and organizations, provincial and federal governments, legislations, and policy governing implementation of the program to ensure cultural respect and relevancy. Financial resources usually come from benefactors and/or funding agencies, and community participants.

The purpose of a culturally relevant parenting program plays a key role in the social and political aspirations of African immigrant women. Programs should be anchored in African women’s cultural knowledges and histories, situated in community, and developed and implemented by African community members. Employing holistic approaches to the care of children is central to successful early childhood programs for African immigrant women, children and families. Such programs build upon the strengths and resilience of individuals and communities, support self determination over women’s lives and that of their children, and responsibility to prepare each generation for their roles and responsibilities in the future. It is for this reason, therefore, that African communities who are the backbone and support for mothers and their children own this recommended strategy.

This culturally relevant program has implications for African parents, children, youth, families, other parenting and educational programs that target African immigrant women, and

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policy makers. African women have varying ways of life and cultural heritage; however, they share similar experiences of discrimination and marginalization in Canada. Racialized people’s experiences in parenting and other programs include prejudice, financial inadequacy, comprehension difficulties, and adjustment difficulties.

Teaching/Learning Strategies

Common teaching-learning strategies such as demonstration and actual activity will be utilized. Encouraging discussion as opposed to telling the women what to do is vital. Not only do the women feel respected, but also it shows them that their cultures and traditions matter, without judgement. Implementing the teaching/learning strategies calls for the involvement of elders to teach. Elders in African traditional societies were respected for their wisdom and were knowledge keepers who passed on to the next generation oral histories, morals, and values that were to be adhered to. The significance of African morals, cultural values, and beliefs is that they were deemed important for the next generation to succeed. In the NP classroom, women’s positive cultural values should be celebrated and taught alongside aspects of the NP mainstream program as a bridge between the Canadian and African knowledge systems. A balance between activities and choice, as well as flexibility should be utilized as elements that can enrich the program. These activities should also include guest speaker visits from cultural gatekeepers and traditional councillors in the African communities.

Female elders should be chosen and voted upon by women in their communities, traditional councillors, and other elders. The criteria for elder instructors should be based on their prominence/leadership in the community, accessibility and approachability by women in African communities, and should have lived in Canada long enough to understand the Canadian system

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and possess the basic skills to instruct an NP class like proficiency in speaking or reading in any of Canada’s official languages for instruction purposes, should have been engaged in Canadian society either through work or volunteerism, and are also engaged in their African communities.

Female elders will be trained to instruct the NP program.

Babysitters for the nursery should be individuals from the African communities chosen by the women and African organizations and trained for their work as caregivers within the culturally relevant NP programs. If the women in the group speak the same language, they are encouraged to use their language in the NP classroom. Teaching in the local languages of the women is important. The classes can be conducted in the women’s local languages.

While the NP text books are written in English, women can have discussions in their own languages if they share a language, and classes should, therefore be conducted by an elder in the

African community who speaks the same language as the participants. Likewise, a group speaking the same language should employ babysitters who speak the same language so they can speak to the children in the nursery as a ways of building confidence and identity with their

African cultural heritage, and builds a sense of belonging when they are older. Women should also be encouraged to speak to their children in their mother tongues both in the NP class and at home. This initiative is an important link to the children’s cultural heritage in which children learn to identify and build confidence in their identity. Many African children do not speak their mother tongues or lose their languages when they come to Canada. As a matter of fact, some children in Africa are taught to speak English, French, or another European language as their first language. These are considered official languages in the African countries inherited from the colonizing European country in the colonial era. This curriculum stems from an anti-colonial

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standpoint that seeks to remove the dehumanizing aspect of African cultures and languages and instil pride in African identity.

A Holistic Perspective

A holistic perspective involves attending NP classes with the whole family including the fathers or males in the home, as well as younger and older children. Enabling father/male involvement and encouraging them to help in the home with domestic work in the home and taking care of children helps to build a strong bond between fathers and children. Findings in the research study on a culturally relevant NP program show that most African fathers tend to be disciplinarians and authoritarian in their disciplinary methods and also tend not to be involved with the day-to-day lives of their children. When fathers or males in the home are involved in the feeding of children, reading to them, taking them for walks, playing with them, as well as staying involved in helping out with household chores, they not only build a strong bond with their children but also teach them values of respect, discipline, and compassion.

Defining the Role of Supporters

Traditional councillors: These are members of an African community from different professional backgrounds like lawyers, social workers, teachers, professors, youth workers, religious leaders, nurses, etc. who come together to form a group whose role is to mediate and work together to support NP women, their families, and members of their communities so as to facilitate the process of conflict resolution in order to find a peaceful end result.

Cultural gatekeepers: These are well respected, prominent and revered elders in African communities charged with the onus of changing pervasive African traditional and cultural perspectives that do not serve or support the well being of women in African communities. For example, in Canada where women are isolated with no help from extended family the pervasive

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traditional perspective of the home, the kitchen, or children being seen as the milieu of the woman often leaves women overworked in the home. This worldview also tends to alienate the men from being involved with their children. Other pervasive perspectives may include controversial practices like female circumcision, which is illegal in Canada, and can be dealt by cultural gatekeepers suggesting and encouraging alternative non-mutilation cultural ceremonies.

Program Flexibility

The culturally relevant NP Program can be implemented in African languages as the language of instruction to support African groups who speak the same language, and to eliminate language barriers in cases where women are not fluent in English.

The Program can be prolonged from 8 to 13 weeks to allow time for women continue with topics they need further clarification on or more time to work on, including guest speaker invitations from African communities who can speak on topics of concern or interest to the women. While the NP mainstream program meets once a week for 2 ½ hours to cover each textbook, many important topics and lessons go uncovered. This innovative NP program allows flexibility to adequately cover all content in all NP books over several weeks as needed while including discussions that cover women’s cultural knowledges and celebrate African identity and heritage.

Curriculum and Community Involvement

Curriculum reflects the core areas of the NP concerns such as family life which touches on the life of NP participants as members of the family from birth to child rearing, and community involvement and values that are significant in African communities including respect, discipline, father/male involvement, health and nutrition, and community supports. A discussion of an NP parenting program that targets African immigrant women cannot be done

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outside of the African communities where these women come from. African people and communities are not individualistic; therefore, their livelihoods occur within communal settings.

Such a program functioning with no supports or resources derived from within the women’s

African communities is not likely to be successful.

The program works from the outside-in, in other words, it builds from community and works in towards the individual NP participant. Community is all-engulfing. This is in opposition to a program model that extracts the individual from their community into the NP program.

Figure 2

Nobody’s Perfect

Institutions Traditional Councillors (community) Cultural Gatekeepers (community)

Community involvement is vital in creating understanding about the needs and resources of NP participants in their own communities. The PHAC offers the NP program free of charge

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and targets single and low-income households. Local businesses in African communities can support the NP program through provision of incentives such as: school supplies; toys, dolls, and books relevant to Black/African identity to use in the nursery; incentives for youth attending with families; as well as gift bags, and food items, or financial donation. African business contributions show support for African women’s NP classes; build connections between the NP program and African communities; develop a positive sense of self and of community that will lead to the development of participants’ potential; and builds trust between the NP program and the African communities. Traditional councillors are well positioned to solicit businesses for support due to their diverse professional backgrounds.

Impact of Mainstream School System and Community Supports

The PHAC, Children’s Aids Societies, and government jurisdictions should afford traditional councillors the power to support NP participants and their children and in African communities through their impact in the mainstream school system. The NP mainstream program is geared towards women with children who are 0 to 5 years old. Parents attending the program, however, are likely to have other school age children from kindergarten to high school.

Supports for the NP should, therefore, go beyond the NP classroom. Financial support, community supports, and resources will require the administration of traditional councillors, giving them powers to access and provide culturally relevant help to at-risk children and youth in schools before a social worker is summoned to handle any case of an African child. This would enable African communities to provide culturally relevant assistance and help before children’s aid or police are involved in the case. Due to systemic racism and poverty in Canada, African children and youth who are at-risk are more likely to be governed with punitive measures compared to their White counterparts. Engaging traditional councillors to work with African

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children and youth by providing a culturally relevant and holistic approach, will enable successful outcomes through counselling services that target the whole family, and community engagement in the setting up poverty alleviation strategies for at risk families.

Traditional councillors ought to have the chance to make reforms concerning African children who find themselves alienated in the school system, and from their own heritage, culture and history. Continued marginalization of communities leads to children and youth alienating themselves from their African cultures which are undermined in the mainstream school system, and also leads to a dying spirit of African cultures.

Elders and Children/Youth

In African traditional communities, a child was not disciplined by parents alone, but the whole community made it their business to look out for raise all their children together. One communal disciplinary strategy is for a family to send a child, particularly an older child, to an elder, an aunt, or uncle when they are unable to handle him/her. These may or may not be relatives but trusted people in the community. Men talk with boys and women with girls. In

African Canadian communities, these individuals can be voted on by young people based on the people they trust within their own communities, local organizations, and religious organizations.

The individuals chosen would work alongside and within the settings of these organizations.

The African traditional and Indigenous education system existed to help the younger generation become responsible human beings in society. This system needs to be recalled by

African communities, and venues need be created for youth to gather, interact with the elders and learn about community dynamics, practices, and values. If a child gets out of hand, he is sent to an elder, an “aunt” or “uncle” who he can listen to and trusts. The trusted members counsel the children not by judgement but through good talk, advice and teachings, and tell them how to live

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their lives in the future (Carpenter, J. Muskegowuk Cree, 2017). It is imperative that elder/youth connections are established in African communities the expression “it takes a village” can be put into practice. This is the kind of support network that African immigrant women need to successfully raise their children in Canada.

Consent in NP Classrooms

There is a need for intervention methods during NP classes to remove the policing of women and allow culturally trained parenting instructors to support the parents unable to handle their child or seen to be mishandling their child. In the mainstream NP program, consent requires that Children’s Aid be called in the event that a parent is seen to mishandle their child. A culturally relevant approach involves providing help and support to the struggling parent. Here in is a teaching moment when help and support is provided to the struggling parent, rather than creating a moment of distrust – “Learning is everywhere and at every moment” (Somoray, 2015).

Should the need arise, traditional councillors should also be considered as a support system in the

NP classroom so that support is provided to the family as a whole. A culturally oriented NP program for African immigrant women should involve NP participants in discussing parenting problems and finding solutions relevant to their lived experiences that are grounded in best practices that involve culturally oriented strategies grounded in both African and Canadian knowledge systems.

A Holistic Approach Engaging Youth

Women are considered carriers of their cultures. Their memory is the library of African community’s knowledge stored in songs, chants, dances, rituals, and day-to-day activities of the

African people. African people’s day-to-day living and the cycle of life of the community was the ultimate repository of knowledge. Encouraging youth to attend NP classes along with their

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families where they are involved in sessions together or separately is a holistic approach of engaging the younger generation in their cultural heritage, building confidence in their cultural identity, and raising a strong, resilient generation of African youth supported by their communities. A simple curriculum and activities for African youth that runs alongside the NP is suggested here and follows the course syllabus below.

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Course Syllabus for a Culturally Relevant Nobody’s Perfect Program for African

Immigrant Women

Start of class:

NP classes always begin with sharing healthy snacks. The intention should always a celebration of cultural appreciation through African healthy foods/snacks and African deco surrounding the food table.

Teaching aids:

1. Empowering parenting videos showing an appreciation of African cultural identity need to be created for NP classes.

2. African-owned businesses provide culturally relevant children’s books for the NP nursery and NP classroom for role-playing. Culturally relevant poster images of African peoples portraying topics in the NP textbooks re-enforce knowledge and positive messages of parenting and supporting mothers in the home. Posters on classroom walls foster learner retention and culturally relevant posters with images of African people help learners relate to the images/visuals.

Weekly Schedule

Week 1: Introductory class (2 ½ hrs)

No assigned readings for first class.

1. Signing of modified consent forms allowing for mediation of traditional councillors.

2. Handing out NP textbooks and take-aways including culturally relevant materials like African story books for children and youth, parenting resources with culturally empowering images, gifts and incentives from African businesses for NP families for children, youth, fathers, and gifts for mothers.

3. Introductory class: A celebration of African cultural identity: The importance of passing on positive African cultural values to our children. A discussion about raising children with positive African cultural values of respect, good discipline, generosity, and compassion. Teaching aids may include posters of African people/community displaying these values, culturally relevant books and audiovisuals.

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4. Assign NP Parents textbook for week 2. NP participants are encouraged to invite all family members to attend NP sessions, including children/youth and fathers, and extended family if feasible. Children and youth activities can be done separately from the parents’ sessions or together depending on topics being discussed. When they are done separately, culturally relevant activities are provided for children and youth sessions.

NP Parents Book

(Weeks 2 & 3) class length 2 ½ hours

NP Parents book: “Helping yourself. Finding help and feeling good about what you do.”

NP topics covered in the Parents book include:

1. Parents are people 2. You are not alone 3. Help 4. Childcare 5. Violence and abuse

Goal: Problem Solving and Critical Thinking.

This culturally relevant approach enables NP learners to be aware of their own thinking, make critical and informed decisions, defend their ideas, evaluate the ideas of others and strive for new ways of solving problems. The two sessions (weeks 2 &3) of the Parents book introduce community resources to families in the NP, and help parents appreciate positive African values and practices of parenting through discussions of the topics in the NP Parents book. As earlier discussed, there is a need to own the system. Community and NP participants decide on the content’s overall direction, management concerns and key content that should be part of the curriculum. Community involvement comes through various forms of interventions like religious organizations, traditional councillors and cultural gatekeepers, and through local African businesses.

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Hanging culturally relevant visuals to compliment the topic and activity for each week is highly encouraged as a way of boosting learning and creating a fresh environment every week to keep the learners’ interest.

Week 2 Parents Book

Parents are People: This section talks about finding time to take care of oneself, self esteem, attachment though caring for your child, and respect in a spousal relationship.

1. A discussion with women on their cultural perspectives in the context of their lived experiences of parenting in Canada, including their needs and concerns. You are not Alone: This section talks about issues of time management, relationships in the home, money issues and resourcefulness, as well as coping with stress.

2. Guest Speaker: Cultural gatekeeper from African community speaks on culture and father/male involvement in the family and with children. This is followed by a discussion with women on their cultural perspectives in the context of family, their parenting experiences and coping methods.

The NP book discusses ways in which one can save money through resourceful activities like swapping, making one’s own clothes, and buying used clothing.

3. A discussion on the ways women create or practice resourcefulness.

4. Activity / Assignment Introduce swapping activity on resourcefulness. Women will start collecting things like children’s used clothing, toys, and shoes and getting other people to donate items. The actual swapping activity takes place in 3-4 weeks. The swapping activity involves women in managing the activity and encourages bonding with NP participants as a support network.

Week 3 Parents Book

Help; Child Care; Violence and Abuse:

This section deals with finding help and support for the parent, childcare, and violence and abuse.

1. Guest speaker presentation on community resources: A traditional councillor from the African community speaks on community resources in the African

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community that the women and their families can tap into, including childcare, counselling services, the role of traditional councillors and cultural gatekeepers in African communities, followed by a question and answer session.

2. Guest speaker presentation on money advice: traditional councillor from the African community presents on resources like social assistance, credit and debt counselling, childcare assistance programs, and parent family resources in African communities, followed by question and answer and discussion.

3. Session concludes with take-aways and gifts for NP participants as incentives for from African businesses to show support for NP families.

4. Assign the NP Body text book for Week 4

The Body NP Book

(Weeks 4 & 5) class length, 2 ½ hrs

The NP Body book is about “Growth, health, and illness.” The topics covered in the

Body book include health, illness, and common childhood health concerns. The aim of a culturally relevant perspective is to develop the ability of the NP learners to access, critically process, and effectively make use of available information on parenting, health and nutrition in a culturally relevant milieu.

Week 4 Body Book

Health:

1. Overview of health topics in NP book and discussion of the cultural ways in which women take care of their children before and after birth.

Nutrition:

2. Audio-visual teaching aid on nutrition: Watch video “Grandmother’s Cooking is the Best” (Directed by Adamu Waziri, 8 minutes. Produced by EVCL 2011) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy4UA0kGDrw

Purpose of video: This is a culturally relevant video that talks about nutrition. The purpose of the video is to encourage parent appreciation of their traditional foods and to teach

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about “healthifying” a dish by replacing some ingredients with similar but more nutritious alternatives.

3. Guest Speaker (nutritionist) presentation: Introduction to the Canadian food guide, African cultural foods and their nutritional value, and healthifying foods. Nutritionist brings in African cultural food items to demonstrate and/or uses video images of African cultural foods to speak about their nutritional value.

4. Assignment/Activity: 3-minute presentation to be done at beginning of next class (week 5). Bring a culturally prepared and or modified dish/ healthified dish to present to the class. A modified or healthified cultural dish is one prepared by either adding, removing or swapping the cultural dish with other healthy ingredients that the child likes, or removing, adding or swapping less healthy ingredients with healthier choices. The women have a choice to show and tell by bringing in the meal to show and talk about it and include information on its nutritional value. Women are provided with the money to make the meal or provided with the ingredients for the meal. The women also have a choice to simply talk about what cultural meal they would prepare and how they would modify or healthify it.

Week 5 Body Book

1. Women make their 3-minute presentations of nutrition activity.

Illness and common childhood health concerns in children:

2. Overview of NP topic on illness and common concerns}

3. Guest speaker: Presentation on African traditional/Indigenous and home remedies, and discussion with women on traditions remedies they are familiar with, and best practices.

4. Demonstration: Recipe on how to make homemade oral therapy for diarrhea and vomiting.

5. Take-aways, gifts and incentives from African businesses to support NP participants.

6. Assign NP Mind Behaviour book for following week

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NP Behaviour Book

(Weeks 6, 7 & 8) class length, 2 ½ hrs

NP Behaviour book: “Helping children learn to behave and ideas for coping with some common behaviours.

Topics covered in the Behaviour book include: behaviour; what can I do? And solving some common problems.

Purpose of a culturally relevant perspective: to expand one’s world view and provide an atmosphere for NP participants to appreciate and practice their own cultures freely while equipping them with basic competencies to face the challenges of a global community and the influx of change. NP participants are encouraged to tell their own stories because hearing and sharing stories is also a way parents learn from each other. “People need to tell their stories, to be acknowledged, to feel part of a human community” (Alexander Wolfe, Saulteaux Elder year)

Visuals: Culturally relevant posters as visuals to hang on classroom walls for weeks 6-8 to foster learning

Week 6 Behaviour Book

1. Culturally relevant discussion questions for NP participants: Teaching children to value respect: a. Discussion on what women consider respectful in their cultures. b. Discussion on how they should teach their children the value of respect, for example talking to them about caring and kindness towards their friends. c. Discussion on the values they want to pass on to their children, and how they were learned, and positive ways of passing on these values. d. Discussion: Discipline in Canada and alternatives e. Discussion on cultural/traditional childrearing techniques like discipline and Canadian child rearing techniques and how to bridge the two gaps to help their children find a balance.

2. Overview of NP topic “behaviour”: Topic deals with baby and parental attachment and developing trust, teaching your child empathy, understanding and

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working with your child’s temperament, and being a positive parent. This is followed by a discussion that solicits parents’ cultural perspectives on the topic.

Week 7 Behaviour Book

1. Overview of NP topic, “What can I do?” with two guest speakers. Topic deals with understanding childhood behaviour from birth to 5 years of age, parental expectations and how to cope.

a. Guest speaker 1: An elder in African community talks about traditional and culturally positive ways African communities and families handled discipline and behavioural issues in African traditional societies, while soliciting discussion from women to share positive stories of childrearing growing up, and encouraging father/male involvement in childrearing.

b. Guest speaker 2: A traditional councillor leads a discussion with learners on raising children in Canada and about culturally relevant resources for parents and children in African communities.

3. Take-aways and gifts from African businesses for families, parents or children/youth to give incentive and show support for NP participants.

Week 8 Behaviour Book

1. Overview of NP topic, “solving some common problems” like aggressive behaviour, tantrums, sibling rivalry, nervous habit, sex play etc. followed by a discussion with NP participants and input on topic of “solving some common problems.” The purpose of the discussion is for women to learn new information of outlined topics and to share their ways of knowing and understanding so as to help each other.

NP Mind Book

(Weeks 9 & 10) class length, 2 ½ hrs

NP Mind book: “thinking, feeling, learning, and playing.”

Topics covered in Mind book: The child’s growing body and mind, and building a secure attachment between parent and child, and suggests different ways of playing for parents and kids.

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The book goes through different stages of a child’s life between 0 and 5 years and examines changes that occur in the following areas:

- Feeling safe, secure, loved, and understood

- Thinking, feeling, learning, and playing

- Things to do with your baby

- Toys for fun and learning

Cultural relevance: A holistic standpoint engages members of the entire family in NP classes. A cultural appreciation of linking and sharing a cultural heritage with children and youth is a way of taking time to do culturally relevant activities together that build confidence and provide a sense of belonging to the younger generation. Youth should be encouraged to use music sourcing or other forms of art from their parents past as a way of connecting parents, children, and tradition. Recalling and invoking history in the music, poetry, and art youth make can be a connecting point for parents and their children as it allows parents and children to work on a project together while engaging in their cultural heritage. It is here also that parents pass on their culture and African histories, forming and strengthening African identity.

Week 9 Mind Book

Cultural relevance: A holistic model that includes all family members. Folk tales and myths serve as a means of handing down traditions and customs from one generation to the next in Africa. For several generations, stories from Africa have traditionally been passed down by word of mouth. Often, after a hard day’s work, the adults would gather the children together by moonlight, around a village fire and tell stories. This was traditionally called ‘Tales by Moonlight’. Usually, the stories are meant to prepare young people for life, and so each story taught a lesson or moral.

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Story telling and songs: telling our stories can guide younger generation. This activity is explained further in the youth curriculum and activities section.

Youth Assignment / Activity: To be presented in week 13 – last day of NP class. Prizes for all youth participants: using women’s histories, ask youth to create an artistic work or take a piece of tradition from their parents or grandparents by using music to connect to their ancestry or claim their parent’s home. For example, finding their parents old records to make their own hybrid music like Hip hop/dance as a way recalling a tradition.

Week 10 Mind Book

Overview of NP Mind book topics and discussion.

NP Safety Book

Week 11 NP Safety Book:

“Injury Prevention and First Aid”.

Topics covered in Safety book include: Childhood injuries, safety at every stage (0-5 years), home safety, car safety, safety outdoors, safety all year round.

Cultural Relevance: to equip women with the information they need to understand and make informed choices

1. Overview of NP Safety book topics a. Include a car seat demonstration – instructor brings in car seat and booster seat – asking participants to participate in demonstrations. b. Home safety: instructor brings in toys small parts, strings, toy surfaces like sharp points to demonstrate safety of children’s products. Bring in useful safety devices as shown in Safety book p. 21 c. 6- 12 mths – food safety – demo of food sizes to prevent choking – grapes, carrots, hot dogs p.18 hard to chew – nuts, raw carrots, hard fruit, pop d. Bed sharing and cultural differences – considered unsafe in Canada but practiced in many other cultures where this is considered normal. - Other resource book: “Sleeping with Your Baby: A Parents Guide to Cosleeping” by McKenna, J. J. (2013). Discuss and solicit women’s opinions and best practices.

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2. Business give-aways of child safety devices.

Week 13 Safety Book

1. Continuation of NP Safety book. Demonstrations of first aid section: Instructor brings all the props needed to demonstrate. like first aid kit, injury treatment using black dolls or mannequins, ice packs/bag etc., asking volunteers for assistance during demonstrations. First aid kit giveaways.

2. Presentation of youth art and prize giving for youth participants.

3. Certificate presentation for completion of NP program to all participants.

4. A meal with the family catered by African restaurant.

African businesses in African communities like restaurants can be incentives for families to attend the last class together. “Somali people have a tradition of hospitality: When a traveller comes to you, you have to give them the best of what you have; if you fill his stomach and tell him sweet words, God will bless you” (Hawa Abdi, 2013, pp. x- xi; Nobel Peace Prize nominee).

African women in the research study used to create this curriculum reiterated this sentiment.

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Chapter 7: Recalling Oral Tradition: Suggested Activities for Youth

Background

This section on youth activities supports NP goals for a culturally relevant program by offering activities that youth are able to do with their parents. These are oral traditional practices like poetry, music, dance, storytelling, bead work, and board games. Youth are encouraged to use their parents’ knowledge to create, modify, or learn an oral traditional art form. Oral traditional practices were passed on through word of mouth as well as learned through observation and they ensured the passage of cultural practices from one generation to another.

During NP sessions, children and youth will be involved in different art forms where they work together with their parents and separately with other youth. With different art forms to choose from youth will decide on what art form to learn from their parents. Youth will work on their projects in their own meetings and at home, as well as attend some NP sessions with their parents. A parent and child can choose to do poetry, for example, and will therefore have to learn a poem in their parent’s African language. Others can learn an African dance, a song, or poetry which can be modified and rapped. Art like beading or weaving are all oral traditional practices that youth should discuss with their parents who will be their mentors in these activities. These art forms build resilience and strengthen identity formation. A talent show will showcase what the youth have learned.

Visuals

The use of visuals like wall posters that encapsulate the concepts of oral traditions and

African identity will aid in the re-enforcement of knowledge for youth learners in a holistic culturally relevant and centred NP program.

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Music and Poetry

Important lessons, stories, and histories told about a people, or entertainment were some of the purposes for music and poetry. Music and poetry accompanied different ceremonies and gatherings. Youth can choose to learn music or poetry taught by their parents.

Rap

Griots in African societies were praise singers or poets and could recite genealogies of families and kings/queens. They were seasoned artists who improvised through telling of current events as well as day-to-day happenings of their people. The art of African griots continues in present day Africa but was passed on through present day American Hip hop and rap artists through transatlantic passages of African peoples. This section on youth activities is followed by a published paper (appendix 1) that exemplifies the significance of rap, an oral tradition artform that can be traced to African griots as far back as the 17th century. The paper foregrounds rap music as a form of resistance for African youth in Canada and explains how oral traditional practices can be an empowering art form and source of strength for African youth. Oral traditions are impactful for African youth as a form of resistance of colonial and racist perspectives.

Suggested Teaching Activities for Younger Children

a) Read K’naan’s book, “When I Get Older, the Story Behind Wavin’ Flag,” (2012).

This book tells the story behind K,naan’s song Waving Flag about how his grandfather’s poetry taught him how to express his feeling through music and poetry.

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b) A song for younger children

“What I am” by Will.i.am (https://youtu.be/cyVzjoj96vs) “What I Am” is a hip-hop song performed by American rapper Will.i.am and aired on the

Sesame Street, a children’s television program.

[Verse 1]

If what I am is what’s in me

Then I’ll stay strong - that’s who I’ll be

And I will always be the best

“me” that I can be

There’s only one me, I am it have a dream I’ll follow it

It’s up to me to try

(https://genius.com/William-what-i-am-lyrics)

Suggested Activities for Youth

Music / Hip hop and Rap

a) Watch Waving Flag video featuring K’naan and Will.i.am (2010). (https://youtu.be/amXeJrA-wDc) Chorus:

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When I get older,

I will be stronger,

They’ll call me “Freedom”,

Just like a wavin’ flag.

(https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/knaan/wavinflag.html)

K’naan was born in Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu. He came from a family of respected artists, including his grandfather who was a renowned poet and his aunt Magool who was one of

Somalia’s most famous singers known as “Hooyaadii Fanka” or “the mother of the Somali art of singers” who sang to K’naan when he was a child. K’naan refers to his country as a nation of poets whose “means of mass communication is a heightened poetry” (Cowie, 2009).

b) Shad’s song I’ll Never Understand (https://youtu.be/n0rNFOvRDH0)

Shad’s song uses his mother’s poetry that talks about the Rwandese genocide, a history he learns from his mother and uses in his rap music. Raised in Kenya, but sharing the genocide history of what his mother’s family went through “I’ll never understand” makes a social political and personal statement on how the world forgot about Rwanda, or his mother’s country. The published paper that follows (appendix 1) talks about the way youth find ways of identifying with their African identity through their parents relationship with their homelands.

Verse from I’ll Never Understand:

I’ll never understand how flesh being torn apart feels or how after all the suffering on the hot hills or the green rich fields where they killed all the young, cold and numb under the light of a golden sun.

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While K’naan’s rap song Waving Flag draws from his grandfather’s poetry, Shad K’s rap song I’ll Never Understand, uses poetry written by his mother to navigate African youth identity.

These examples can be used to show how youth can create rap music by drawing from their parents histories and stories of their parents countries, as a way of connecting to the Africa of their parents of which they are a part of, even if some were born in Canada.

Dance

Dance is an integral part of African and Black culture in Canada. African dance or modified forms by African youth can be used to create identification with their African roots.

Youth may learn a dance from their parents as is or modify it to suit their taste.

Art

Artwork can be exemplified through different forms like African masks, beadwork, weaving etc.

African weaving bead work /jewelry

It is important that the parents mentor the creation ideas so they can pass on these oral traditional practices to their children. Elders or community members with the know how can also get involved in the absence of parental mentorship. It is here also that meanings embedded in different patterns can be learned.

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Board Games

African board games are suggested for youth where they will receive coaching by either

parents or someone from the community who knows how to play the game. The board games can

be used for family bonding. They learn the strategies for playing and meanings of games. Some

of the African board games have been around for generations and are a part of African

Indigenous practices that were used to teach and educate the younger generation. Youth can also

play the board games on their own during the NP class and at home with their families.

Bayeck’s (2018) review of five African board games explores ways in which the board

games have been used for different purposes in African cultures. Her review shows that African

board games are important cultural elements used to share and acquire information, acquire

skills, cognitive strategies, attitudes, and motor skills. As part of the social, intellectual, and

cultural fabric of African societies, board games have been in existence in Africa for centuries

and continue to be a part of entertainment and cultural transmission today. Players learn life

skills, values like perseverance, harmony, leadership, social, verbal and math skills. Among the

Shona people of Zimbabwe, interactive apprenticeships and skills practice were considered some

of the benefits of board games. In general, these games are fertile learning environments with

great educational benefits.

Examples of African board games

1. Omweso, Mancala: Played throughout Africa

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This board game is played throughout Africa and is known by different names like Omweso,

mancala, oware, bao, ayo, enkeshui and aweet. Dating back to thousands of years ago, board

game pits have been found carved into the roofs of ancient Egyptian tombs in Luxor and Thebes.

2. Morabaraba: Played in South Africa.

This traditional African board game is known as Morabaraba or Umlabalaba in South Africa. A

similar version called Shax is also found in Somalia, and Achi in Ghana. In South Africa, the

game was used to teach tactical thinking skills to herd boys. The game pieces are referred to as

cows. The objective of the game is to form rows of three in order to shoot the opponent’s cows,

although rules differ in different places.

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3. Zamma: Played in North Africa (http://www.consuladodosbrinquedos.com.br)

A traditional game in North Africa, Zamma or Dhamet, also known as Kharbaga in Mauritania,

dates back to 1400 BC. The square board has nine rows across and nine down, and each player

gets 40 pieces with the black ones referred to as men and the white ones referred to as women.

Following the patterns of the board, the pieces can only move forward as they capture their

opponents by hopping over them until they are crowned king or “mullah” when they get to the

opposite end of the board.

4. Fanorona: Played in Madagascar

A popular board game in Madagascar, Fanorona has been around for hundreds of years. Similar to

Zamma, the game’s objective is to capture the opponent’s pieces. Each player has 22 pieces some

of which move diagonally, forward, and backward. Due to its popularity, legend has it that in the

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1500s, a king’s son lost his chance to inherit land from his father because he was so busy playing

the game. Still, variations of the game exist from place to place.

5. Seega: Played in Egypt

(picture from tripsavvy)

Thought to have originated in the 1800s in Egypt, Seega is an African traditional board game

played in parts of North and West Africa. Each player has 12 pieces which are strategically placed

on the board two at a time to capture by sandwiching an opponent’s piece. The center square is a

safety zone. Board game rules and board sizes vary in different parts where the game is played.

6. Butterfly or Gulugufe: Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique

Gulugufe in the Tonga language is a two-player strategy game. The game board gets its name

from the two triangles joined together in the shape of a butterfly. With nine pieces to place on the

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board on each side, players capture their opponents by hopping over them using nineteen

intersection points.

7. Dara, Derrah, or Doki: Played in Nigeria

(picture from Board Game Geek)

Dara, Derrah, or Doki in the Hausa language of Nigeria and Niger, is a game that has been

played in Nigeria for several hundred years. Doki, which means horse, this is an alignment game

traditionally played by the Dakarkari people.

8. Senet: Played in Egypt

(picture from The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Considered one of the oldest board games known, fragmentary boards of the senet board game

were found in the first dynasty burials in Egypt in 3100BCE. Several depictions of the board game

have been discovered in Egyptian tombs. The tomb of Merknera (3300–2700 BCE) appears to

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have a hieroglyph that resembles a senet board; a painting of the game was also found in the

Third dynasty tomb of Hesy (2686–2613 BCE); the tomb of Rashepes has depictions of people playing senet, as well as tombs from the Fifth and Sixth dynasties (2500 BCE); and the tomb of

Queen Nefertari in 1295 BCE depicts her playing senet. However, there were no original written rules for the game found since they were passed on by word of mouth from one generation to the next (Piccione, 2008).

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Chapter 8: Summary, Conclusion, and Future Directions

The Nobody’s Perfect parenting program owned by the Public Health Agency of Canada has been described as simple and adaptable to parenting and motherhood. As a result, it has been adapted by other countries like Chile, Japan, and Mexico, making it an internationally renowned program worth studying. While several evaluation studies for the NP program have been undertaken, there is a lack of more comprehensive assessments of parenting and other community and social programs that focus on the experiences of African immigrant women and other racialized exists in the literature. This research study sought to understand how African immigrant and other racialised women experience the Nobody’s Perfect program. The findings of the study called for improvement of the program and addressed ways in which a culturally relevant holistic program and curriculum could improve the NP.

The findings of this study will help develop a deeper understanding about African families and communities in Diaspora who live in the larger Anglo-Canadian community and culture, and who also practice their cultural heritage. As a growing number of African immigrants call Canada home, it is also important for parenting agencies to recognise that there is a need to support African mothers and their children. This study highlights and extends research on the importance of African Indigenous knowledges in social and public programs as a decolonising tool. It raises awareness to the local Indigenous struggles and epistemologies underlying Canadian debates which address the destruction of colonised cultures, languages, devalued lives, and knowledge of Black and Indigenous peoples. The study also raises awareness about global issues on postcolonial reconciliation and education. The results of the study will enable scholars, policy-makers, and practitioners to appreciate the possibilities and difficulties that characterise and frame African immigrant women’s attempts to raise their children in a

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culturally meaningful and positive context meant to advance the social political and economic environment of their families and communities.

Drawing from Black feminist transnational theoretical frameworks, as well as Black

Canadian feminisms such as exemplified in the work of Njoki (2002, 2007, 2013), African feminisms, and Black feminisms (Colins 1990), the analysis of this study focussed on gender and race and the ways in which they are transformed through colonisation, migration, and globalisation. Postcolonial and anti-colonial feminist theories were also utilized in the study since they seek to decolonise as well as resist the Eurocentric viewpoint which claims to be the basis of knowledge and education.

Using a curriculum assessment approach to critically review the five textbooks used in the Nobody’s Perfect program, the study’s analysis paid attention to how and if these texts and

NP teaching techniques met the educational and social objectives of the curriculum. The objectives are to support immigrant and native mothers to care for healthy Canadian children who are also productive citizens, and to integrate these individuals in social and political structures which are considered the basis of the Canadian state and society. Secondly, one-on- one in-depth interviews with African immigrant women were conducted to identify community supports, cultural practices, and values the women consider important in raising their children.

As well, having attended an eight week Nobody’s Perfect program, I was able to use firsthand knowledge of the program in the analysis of the study.

This study used the qualitative data collection method through in-depth interviews with

17 women from 12 African countries with the intent of exploring African mentoring techniques in relation to the NP program. Personal interviews allow for the researcher to gain a deep understanding of how a person views the world, articulates their values and beliefs, and forges

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relationships with others, as well as family members. Personal interviews are useful in research that focuses on women and their everyday lives because one-on-one conversations invite women to express themselves freely and to share their knowledge about childrearing with another women who in this case is a female researcher and mother of three children.

The sample size of 17 women was purposive so as to identify information-rich sources.

With some participants known to me, I used the snowball sampling technique to enable me to obtain names from the interviewees of possible participants in the study. Questions posed during the interview sought to understand the women’s experiences regarding African culture and traditions in their countries of origin, to understand their experiences as immigrants in Canada, and their experiences of childbirth and raising children in Canada. Two instructors were part of the 17 women interviewed, but with a different set of questions that aimed to understand their experiences with interactions of other African women who attend parenting programs, and their recommendations about parenting programs that target African immigrant women.

Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim, and coded manually to identify ideas, events, and themes in the data. In vivo coding was used for purposes of data analysis because of its usefulness in highlighting the participants voices. This data analysis approach emerges from

Black feminisms such as embodied in Patricia Collins work (1990) that advocates for a woman’s standpoint and emphasizes Black women’s lived experiences and resistance to Eurocentrism.

The findings of the study showed that curriculum and NP evaluation studies assessments are

Eurocentric in nature and impact the way women experience the NP classroom.

Four themes that emerged from the study were community, respect, discipline, and father/male (un)involvement in the home. The theme on community suggested that African women’s supports and resources are not grounded in their communities, cultures, values, and

162

histories, creating a misalignment between NP goals and objectives, and the women’s needs.

Within African traditional societies, extended family and community are fundamental in childrearing and supporting mothers. Women’s interviews revealed the lack of social supports in

Canada that the women expect and receive in their home countries. Some women sought out this support by returning to their homelands for childbirth, while others brought their mothers or a close relative over to Canada during the child birthing period.

The theme on respect revealed that the women found it difficult to raise their children in

Canada because they felt aspects of respect they consider important in raising their children are undermined within Canadian society. The women also talked about the lack of father/male involvement in parenting and domestic help they experienced growing up, and in raising their own children. However, some women talked about the change they see with the younger generation of fathers who tend to be more involved in the home and with parenting, and that as women become more independent, they are also starting to demand this change in the home.

The four themes discussed above on community, respect, discipline, and father/male

(un)involvement showed the Eurocentricity of the program and revealed the needs of the women for the NP program, their families, and communities. Furthermore, the study revealed that

African, Indigenous, and other racialized groups are disproportionately affected by racism, poverty, and cultural misunderstandings which are also at the core of the program’s

Eurocentricity. In 2018, the Ontario Human rights commission, for example, stated that African

Canadian and Indigenous children are apprehended at much higher rates than any other racial group, and over-presented in foster care, despite studies showing that these groups do not abuse their children any more than any other race.

163

Racialised people are also affected more by high unemployment rates due to racism, which leads to high unemployment rates that are the main cause of poverty. As well, due to cultural misunderstandings, African women’s disciplinary methods may be perceived as assault and have led to the involvement of child protection services. Furthermore, social workers who work with children’s aid societies also work alongside the NP program. The social workers’ targeting of African and other racialized groups for practices that do not measure up to White middle class behaviour and have led to mistrust among racialized groups whose children are taken into foster care in unprecedented numbers. The PHAC owns the NP program and works alongside the Department of Justice, the Child Maltreatment Research Organisation, and with social workers and agencies who voluntarily collect information about child maltreatment. With systemic racism evident in the workings of the organisations that overlook child protection services, the odds are stack against African mothers, their children, families, and communities

In my study, I make recommendations to adapt a modified Indigenous African educational model called the senga model derived from Uganda. I recommend this model to improve the NP program to support African immigrant women, their children, families, and communities. The senga solution calls for African Indigenous forms of leadership that include people from African communities in various professions like teachers, lawyers, social workers, youth workers, nurses, and ministers to work as traditional councillors alongside the NP program. Traditional councillors would be recognised as first responders in schools and communities as part of a solution of working effectively across cultural boundaries. Traditional councillors would have the power as first responders to intervene in the women’s and children’s lives before CASs are involved. They would be first responders for at-risk children in schools before CAS’s, police, and law courts are involved, and they would work with different

164

institutions in the community like cultural associations and churches for support. They would work alongside the NP to give instruction as guest speakers and solicit support from African businesses.

As well, cultural gate keepers would comprise of elders and prominent members in

African communities who are well disposed to help alleviate pervasive cultural beliefs that do not advance women’s wellbeing, like helping subvert beliefs that only women should work in the home and take care of children. They would help subvert cultural practices considered illegal in

Canada by advocating for emphasis on the lessons embedded in practices like female circumcision, or even disciplinary methods like spanking that have put racialized peoples in trouble.

Traditional councillors and cultural gatekeepers work within a form of African

Indigenous leadership that is empowering to African women, their children, families, and communities in Canada. This form of leadership would be built support social programs like the

NP. It is vital that the NP function within the communities which it serves, alongside the recommended Indigenous African leadership model to alleviate engagement in Eurocentric hegemonic assumptions that belittle and demean women’s experiences, cultures, histories, and values as backward or primitive. This initiative would require a comprehensive provincial or federal financial backing similar to that provided to Indigenous communities.

Finally, I created a modified holistic NP curriculum that involves the whole family, along with suggested activities for women, youth, and children, while encouraging community engagement in the program by African local businesses and members of the community.

Future Directions

165

It is vital that a study and evaluations of social programs use Black feminisms, anti- colonial, and Indigenous approaches in implementing and assessing curriculum. This is why this work is important because curriculum studies will greatly benefit from using Black feminist standpoints and anticolonial approaches as well as transnational experiences of racialized peoples to address issues of (in)equality in social programs and educational institutions, and help combat hegemonic ideologies that privilege the arbitrary over the realities of racialized peoples.

166

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Appendices

Appendix A: Published Chapter

Indigeneity and Resistance in Hip hop and Lived Experiences of Youth of African Descent

in Canada

My own journeys have shaped the framework of my analysis when it comes to studying anti-colonial thought and pedagogical challenges. As a teenager, I was exiled with my family from Uganda and granted asylum in Kenya. Four years later, my family was given refugee status in Canada. Today, I am married to a Nigerian and our children were born in Canada. As children of African parents, they claim an African heritage that is alive through their parents’ cultural memories and lived experiences of “back home” on our ancestral lands.

African parents in the diaspora trace their rootedness to particular ancestral homelands in

Africa (Dei, 2010, p. 104). Our influences are grounded in who we are as African people. While we claim and share many commonalities with all Black people in Canada, our histories, cultures, experiences and traditions are not homogeneous. As Dei points out, we cannot be seduced into amputating our past. My children, as first generation Canadians, embody many experiences different from my own. Dei proffers that the voice of the diaspora is differently inflected for the youth.

Youthful versus Elder Indigenous voices offer different insights, ones we must listen to as youth negotiate the terrains of the Diaspora, migration, and multiple located identities. (Dei,

2010, p. 104)

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This chapter talks about ways in which youth1 of African descent in Canada appropriate black popular culture, particularly through Hip hop and its musical style of rap, while interrogating how they make sense of their own existence within the Canadian context of race and inequality. While not always the same for migrant youth and first generation African youth, these experiences have many similarities, largely brought about by their racialized black bodies.

In this chapter I draw from observations and experiences of my teenage son; I also compare work written on Hip hop in Africa and Canada, and draw on the work and experiences of Canadian recording artists of African descent and Ugandan artist Eddy Kenzo. Narrating and focusing on lived experiences of African youth are about theorizing their social existence. Bell

Hooks (1989) and Trinh T. Minh-Ha (1989) write about the relevance of lived experiences and how these must and can be incorporated into theory. Personal experience or naming reality through confession or memory can be a process of politicization. Personal narratives unite scientific knowledge with everyday experience, and when linked to collective reality, they create a process of historicization (Hooks, 1989).

For African immigrants crossing transnational borders, “back home” is a reference to our ancestral lands. Home denotes cultural, social and political boundaries (Giroux, 2009). First generation African youth in Canada often experience their families’ sense of “back home” through online African music or African music that their families, usually their parents, listen and dance to in their homes, in their cars and at African events. In cities like Toronto, they also experience “back home” through African grocery stores where their parents buy African foods

1 The words “youth” and “artist” are used interchangeably, as the discussion focuses on youth who are Hip hop or rap artists.

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and African home videos. They experience “back home” through guests, relatives and friends who visit from their African homelands and through other African immigrant families living in

Canada who are, from time to time, invited to share in the food and culture, along with their

African Indigenous languages. They may also experience their parents’ “back home” through visitations to the Indigenous lands their parents claim. “Home” and “roots” are main features in the everyday discourses of African family members (Obeid, 2013).

Michelle Obeid’s (2013) probing work in “Home Making in the Diaspora: Bringing

Palestine to London” reveals that

an ethnographic examination of mobility requires that we look at the actual lived

experiences of moving persons, as “ordinary people” (whether their migration was

“forced” or not) who are agentive actors embedded in social, political, and historical

contexts. (p. 368)

Obeid states that the home that one left behind features in shaping the everyday processes of creating home in a new context. Similarly within diasporic African communities, African foods, languages, music, home videos and movies viewed on the Internet are some of the efforts and strategies that are reintroduced in the Canadian society. They create spaces for the reproduction of our Africanness, and our homes and gatherings are meeting points where dispersed families are repositioned (Obeid, 2013, p. 369).

Obeid’s home making is a forward-looking process in as much as it is a longing for a lost past. Citing anthropologist Ghassan Hage (1997) in his essay “Home in the Entrails of the West,” she reiterates that home building as an affective construct, one entailing “the building of the feeling of being ‘at home’” (pp. 102–103). Certain social activities are produced on an everyday

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level, what Obeid calls “projects of rootedness.” She describes them as activities that “produce attachments that root persons in a particular place” (p. 369).

Food is very important within many African communities in Canada, and African events often feature African food. Obeid points out that food as both material and symbol (Obeid, 2013, p. 374) is well known to transport people (especially ethnic and diasporic groups) to different times and places through triggering “experience or meaning in reference to the past” (cited in

Holtzman, 2006, p. 363). Food elicits feelings of nostalgia (Obeid, 2013, p. 374), proudly connected to a feeling of “being there here” (Hage, 1997, p. 109).

Within African communities in Canada, nostalgia also evokes memories of community and family back home that are infused with strength and oneness in which everyone looks out for everyone else. Relatives and neighbours look out for your children. Recall the African proverb It

Takes a Village to Raise a Child. Parents do not carry the burden of raising children on their own because the whole community takes part in looking out for them and making sure they are safe and have enough to eat.

For many Africans in Canada, “back home” is also seen as a place where one becomes grounded. African immigrant parents who feel their children have “lost their way” and have become unruly may send those children back home to live with relatives. Parents will take such measures, believing that the Western culture and racialized environment is to blame for the children’s behaviour or lack thereof. Parents who have had difficulties managing the behaviour of their teenage children may decide to send a younger sibling back home for early grounding.

African parents believe in the support system of the extended family, friends and teachers back home. The communality and social systems of African cultures create an environment in which extended family and friends play a large role in raising and disciplining children. Children are

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therefore answerable not only to their parents and caregivers, but also to their uncles, aunties, grandparents, teachers and family friends. Bledsoe and Sow (2011) explain this dynamic:

Even more serious for parents may be the repurcussions of an undisciplined child’s

involvement in gangs, violence and crime . . . Forbidden to levy the kind of discipline

they deem necessary to control and instransigent child who may have begun to draw

attention from authorities, immigrant parents . . . may decide to send the child back home,

whether to relatives or to boarding school, to wait for the risk to abate (p. 748).

Furthermore, Giroux (2009) states that “home” is about those cultural spaces and social locations which work hegemonically and as sites of resistance. “‘[H]ome’ is safe by virtue of its repressive exclusions and hegemonic location of individuals and groups outside of history” (p.

81).

Although the ever-reaching hands of imperialism in a post-colonial Africa have eroded and exploited Africa’s resources and cultures, ancient African civilizations and histories have not been completely erased by a few decades of colonial rule. Rich cultures and traditions are part of and sources of pride on African Indigenous lands. Youth of African descent who visit ancestral lands on the African continent, where our bodies are not politicized and reduced to a skin colour, places where the body politic changes and black is dominant while white becomes the “other,” and where race becomes a political and social nonentity, are impacted and empowered by such tremendous change. Suddenly they are part of the dominant group.

When my husband who is a professor went to Nigeria on an academic sabbatical, our whole family left Toronto and spent two years in Nigeria. I remember how, prior to our move, my son had expressed concern that he was afraid to go to high school. Once we saw a group of

Black teenage boys walking in the suburb northwest of Toronto where we live, he asked whether

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they were a gang. This was despite the fact that there was no teenage gang activity in the neigbourhood and Blacks were in the minority. However, it was common to see the policing of teenagers in general, at a neighbourhood cafe on Friday and Saturday nights where teenagers hang out. I knew my son’s fear of going to high school had nothing to do with academics, given his strong academic abilities, but I was greatly concerned because this is how mass media and dominant culture portrays young Black males, and he knew this was how he would be judged.

Once in Nigeria, we enrolled our children in a school that soon felt like family. There was a sense of community at this school that I had not experienced in Canadian schools. My children’s African teachers and school nurse took on responsibilities towards my children beyond their formal duties. Perhaps, as Freire wrote, “it was by travelling all over the world . . . it was by passing through all these different parts of the world as an exile that I came to understand my own country better” (Giroux, 2009, p. 83). Or, perhaps for me, living in a predominantly white state in Canada had made me forget what it felt like to live without all the racialized labels attached to my name and body and the stereotypes that come with them. While I grew up in Uganda and had now lived in Canada half of my life, I had taken for granted the communality found in many African cultures that I had known as a child.

Although we regularly visited Nigeria with my husband and children, it was usually for three weeks at a time. Living there for two years had a different effect on our entire family.

During our two-year stay in Nigeria my son mentioned to me that he was no longer afraid to go to high school and that he realised there was nothing to be afraid of. He completed his last year of elementary school and his first year of high school in Nigeria.

Three years after returning to Canada we find the news media filled with stories of young

Black unarmed males being shot and killed by police in the United States and the arrest and

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death of a young black woman, Sandra Bland (Ford, 2015, n.p.). The shooting and killing of

Black males south of the Canadian border and the lived experiences of Black youth in Canada where the criminalization of Black males is also prevalent are once again our realities.

A legacy of racism towards black people is embedded within the systemic workings of

Canadian institutions associated with white power and privilege. Black youth have to deal with the realities of racism and discrimination on a daily basis. Hip hop culture offers a way of belonging for Black youth precisely because it is a form of resistance against white supremacy and racial discrimination. Black youth of African descent take on the Hip hop culture as their own and identify with its forms of resistance and struggles of Black people everywhere.

A hip-hop rap enthusiast, my son writes, produces and performs his own rap poetry. He first got involved with the art form during our two-year stay in Nigeria, a love for which he continued to nurture long after we returned to Canada. He crossed transnational borders from

North America to Indigenous land in Africa where he gained interest and learned rap, an art form most associated with American Hip hop, from a group of African teenagers in his school in

Nigeria. Charry (2012) states that the influence of African American music and culture on

Nigerians affects the music and identity of an entire generation, even those who have never traveled overseas. “Nigerian youth are able to reinterpret and appropriate African American style and music so that they form a legitimate arm of Black world culture” (p. 150).

Rap as an art form known for its messages of resistance among North American youth has been taken up among African artists and youth on the African continent and used as a tool of resistance. Hodkinson and Deicke (2007) point out that in marginalizing societies, Hip hop became a means for Black youth to express their discontent. Hip hop’s culture and its musical

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expression, rap, came to be regarded as an authentic and resistant form of expression for marginalized Black youth (p. 79).

That African artists have appropriated rap in African Indigenous languages is one of the major changes of the art form on the continent. With so many languages spoken in Nigeria, let alone the African continent, music sung in pidgin English has a wider audience appeal because it is understood by people from different ethnic groups. In Nigeria, my son learned to speak pidgin

English, which is exemplified in contemporary Nigerian music styles. Shonekan (2012) explains that the colonial experience that “led to the creation of pidgin English as the vernacular of

Anglophone West Africans reflected a duality of the internal and external, of the colonizer and the colonized, of the oppressor and the oppressed” (p. 149). He asserts that this form of language hybridity “connotes the historical merging of two or more forms that nevertheless retain sufficient resemblance to the original sources” (ibid). An appropriation of Hip hop’s rap music can be found in several other African countries, including East Africa. Ntarangwi (2009), for example, describes East African Hip hop as combining “elements of local and popular musical traditions with mostly American (U.S.) and Jamaican music styles of rap and raga, respectively”

(p. viii).

Ngoya Kidula (2012) talks about the Kenyan rap group Kalamashaka that had previously rapped in English and imitated North American gangster ghetto rappers as it addressed the poverty and injustice in Dandora, an economically marginalized section of Nairobi. Kidula explains that the English language alienated the singers from the conditions in their Dandora

“hood.” Kenyan rap, however, became a national phenomenon when the group released its 1999 single in Swahili, the language of the urban middle and lower classes. The album featured street

Swahili (sheng) associated with a section of Nairobi, carrying metaphors, hyperboles and tongue

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twisters. The single “Tafsiri hii” had underlying meanings and idioms familiar to insiders (p.

175).

Sheng is based on Swahili and English but incorporates Kenyan languages such as Luo and Kikuyu. It has been linked to Kenya’s colonial history since the 1900s. It began at a time during British rule when the British were building the railway in Uganda from Mombasa to Jinja

(Mokaya, 2006). Mazrui (1995) suggests that Sheng may have originated in the 1930s as a

Nairobi underground jargon:

The most explicit suggestion of a Sheng-like code that was in existence as far back as the early 1930s is to be found in “Miaka 50 Katika Jela” (Fifty Years In Jail) by Michael Ngugi

Karanja. . .. [T]he examples he gives . . . strongly suggest that “Sheng” emerged as an underground professional code way back in the colonial period. (p. 173)

Ngūgī wa Thiong’o (1986) opines that “the choice of language and the use to which language is put is central to a people’s definition of themselves in relation to their natural and social environment, indeed in relation to the entire universe” (p. 4).

When rap music were acquired by East African and West African Black youth on the

African continent, these styles necessitated appropriation into other languages such as Swahili, sheng and pidgin—the language forms used by the middle and lower classes. English, the language imposed on Africans during the colonial era, remains the elitist form of communication used in formal schooling in Anglophone countries. The English language connotes social upward mobility and is privileged among the African elite. As such, schools privilege the English language. It is common to find students who attend elite schools who have also been raised to speak only English at home, unable to speak their Indigenous languages. This was true of many students in my children’s school in Nigeria and of several other elite schools.

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Wa Thiong’o (1986) explains that African realities are affected by the great struggle between two mutually opposed forces in Africa, namely, the imperialist resistance traditions (p.

2). This duality is also manifested in the contradiction of the popular culture scene in Africa.

While there is a need for African youth/artists to resist and speak against vices in society and corrupt administrations in pidgin and Indigenous languages in Hip hop culture, African youth are also caught up in an elitist formal education that rewards English as a medium of social and upward mobility.

Pidgin and Indigenous languages have been popularized by the music of African youth on the continent. Ugandan artist Eddy Kenzo’s (2014) music video Sitya Loss went viral, and even those who do not understand what Kenzo is saying embrace the catchy beat and exuberant dancing. The song Sitya Loss is also an example of how Indigenous languages can be learned and popularized through Hip hop music. Showing its global appeal, the Luganda song featuring a mix of slang and Swahili, has been sung by musicians in other African countries, including noted artists Elodie Amondji (2015) of Côte d’Ivoire and, an all white male Chicago-based bluegrass band, the Henhouse Prowlers (2015). The act of taking up an Indigenous language by foreign speakers speaks volumes about the decolonizing role that Hip hop can have in both continental

Africa and the Western world.

Kenzo’s message is to stand defiant, dance and celebrate life. The visuals bear witness to the impoverished people and land in the countryside where the video was shot. The infectious smiles and laughter of dancing children, men and women, some wearing tattered clothes, are infused with pride and defiance in the face of scarcity. Kenzo, who lost his mother at the age of four, was forced to live and survive as a homeless child for more than thirteen years because he did not know where his father was, nor did he know any relatives. Music became his safe haven.

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Staying true to his roots even after a breakthrough in the music industry, some of his music videos continue to portray socially conscious messages of the marginalised.

The video went viral precisely because it depicts the resilience and strength of Indigenous people happily dancing in poverty-stricken surroundings. It refused to carry overtones of doom and narratives of powerlessness and helplessness. Unlike most expectations of what of poor

Africans should look like, Kenzo’s work depicts a resistant culture that shows the resilience of the poor and marginalised in the countryside. The video portrays their lives as happy, despite the little that they have. Their lives are not defined by materialism but by the strength of community that culminates in their celebration of life through dance and music. Kenzo’s infectious and resilient artistic renditions of the poor have been imitated by other Ugandan and African artists, including Gulu Omako Mac (see DJ Dench, 2015), and a video of children from the Mathare community in Nairobi, Kenya, dancing to Sitya Loss (Kenzo, 2014; see also Tahmane Music,

2014).

Sitya Loss not only points to the loss Kenzo suffered when his mother died, but he sings about other people who have passed on:

Abange buno obulamu bumpi [My fellow people, this life is too short]

Nze nkugambye, kale mundeke nange [I have told you, so please let me be]

Bwenzijukilamu jjenvudde [When I remember how far I have come]

Nendowooza atte kubanaffe [and I think about my fellow brothers and sisters]

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. . . batulekawo dada [They already left us]

Nebagenda e’Kaganga [And went to the grave]

Etali musaana [where there is no sun light] . . . 2

However, the song starts out in defiance and celebration of life:

Anko [slang meaning “to play/do something again”]

. . . Yelele, elelele oh Elelele, yelele oh Yaya [Yelele is a joyful shout]

. . . Leeka nzine [Let me dance]

. . . Obulamu bwakisela [Life is too short]

Atte omuziki, zuri saana [And the music is so good] . . . 3

The refrain of the song Nze sitya loss [I’m not afraid of loss], Nze sitya loss ndi boss [I am the boss and I am not afraid of loss] speaks to his defiance and self-determination, and his choice to celebrate life through dance rather than be afraid of its losses. Kenzo articulates this sentiment in the first verse by putting the onus on the youth to make this change and to bring an end to quarrels, fights and materialism:

Yefe abavubuka envumulo . . . [We are the vibrant/powerful youth]

Sagala nyombo Kubanga eno sawa ya ndongo [I don’t want any quarrels/fights because

it’s time to dance]

. . . Wama sembera [Please come closer]

Bulamu bwasoba [life is messed up]

2,3,4 http://pancocojams.blogspot.ca/2015/08/eddy-kenzo-sitya-loss-ugandan-video.html

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Jangu twetale [Come let’s play/dance]

Byansi bya kuleeka [Everything in this world will be left behind] 4

Kenzo’s music video resists images of helpless starving children with flies crawling on their faces—images we often see in charity commercials. Defying stereotypes of the needy and poor African through strong imagery, featuring a mix of the local Indigenous language, Luganda, with Uglish, the Ugandan pidgin, Kenzo’s defiant artistic expression reclaims the contested colonial land and inhabits it on his own terms. The audience’s reading of resistance in the dancing bodies in Kenzo’s music video creates new emotions in an audience used to charity- driven images of helpless, poor Africans.

Charitable development agencies tend to subscribe to discourses of authority in which the body is exoticized in order to create the space of otherness. Some local groups seeking funds from the West have also been complicit in the Othering of the African body. Kenzo’s video made from a space of the Other challenges this discursive authority and authorial identity. The subject positions in Kenzo’s video speak to an anti-colonial narrative informed by Kenzo’s

Indigenous language.

Music videos, including Kenzo’s work which feature homegrown cultural perspectives dismantle the political and philosophical standpoints of the colonial and create messages and images grounded in subaltern differences and ways of knowing. Kenzo as the voice of the marginalized along with the dancing bodies of children, men, and women as the bodies of resistance, perform from colonial spaces in the pursuit of resistance. Walcott (2003) contends that the use of the body

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echoes the various ways in which Black cultural practices have always treated bodies as a

canvas upon which historical and contemporary social relations may be signified,

inscribed and rewritten. The body, therefore, is not only used as a biological mechanism,

it also works as a site for the contestation of social relations as those relations relate to

acts and actions of power on and through the body. (p. 97)

As the subject and the material come together in Kenzo’s music video, they offer a critique of the colonial space in which the West is implicated in the underdevelopment of Africa through colonialism and imperialism. Kenzo’s attempt to reclaim agency in the face of cultural obliteration and his authentic voice challenge dominant renditions often perpetuated in the media.

As settlers on Canadian land, African bodies have also been racialized by the dominant group of white Anglophone settlers in Canada from early colonial times to the Second World

War as part of the project to create a nation and a national identity. Mackey (1998) points out that white Anglophone settlers in Canada mobilized representations of others and decided how non-British cultural groups were “managed, located, let in, excluded, made visible or invisible, represented positively or negatively, assimilated or appropriated, depending on the changing needs of nation-building” (pp. 37–38). “These cultural groups,” she explains, “become infinitely manageable populations as well as bit players in the nationalist imaginary, always dancing to someone else’s tune” (p. 62). More recently, Quayson and Daswani (2013) observe that

popular sentiments linked to a sense of nationalism created along the lines of “common

blood,” “dominant race”. . . are often used to create fear and hostility against outsiders

who are seen to be “swarming” into the country and changing its moral fabric (p. 15).

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Described as an invading force unable to fully integrate into the resident society, they have become scapegoats for national distress, projecting blame onto the Other to preserve the national self (ibid).

An ethnographic study of an immigrant refugee group of African youth attending an urban French language high school in southwestern Ontario points to the racism, human degradation and the annihilation of Black people, particularly youth of African descent (Ibrahim,

2008). Awad Ibrahim explains that continental African youth find themselves in a racially conscious society that “asks” them to racially fit somewhere (p. 243). He argues that African youth, prior to coming to Canada, were not black in Africa, but become black in North America where “they fall within the ‘eyes of power,’” where “blackness is conceived as a performative category, a form of speech, an attitude and a social location one takes up” (p. 235).

Faced with the social imaginary that African youth are already black, this imaginary determines how and with whom they identify, what they linguistically and culturally learn and how they learn it. According to Ibrahim, what they learn is Black English as a second language that they accessed through black popular culture. “They learned by taking up and repositing the

Rap linguistic and musical genre and, in different ways, acquiring and rearticulating the Hip-Hop cultural identity” (Ibrahim, 2008, p. 243). Since rap itself is a contemporary black cultural form, re/citing it by African students is in fact a performance of where they want to locate themselves politically, racially, culturally and linguistically (p. 246). Although youth of African descent often identify with black culture in Canadian society, their African backgrounds and African communities within which they function also offer unique African experiences that are different from Black Canadian culture. The life experiences of immigrant youth of African descent also inform their musical styles.

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Somali-Canadian Hip hop artist K’naan, for instance, lived through violent experiences as a child of war in Somalia, and in Toronto’s gang-ridden neighbourhood of Rexdale5 where he spent the later years of his childhood. Although K’naan’s music has been described by Welte

(2014, n.p.) as “a sound that fuses Bob Marley, conscious American Hip hop, and brilliant protest poetry,” K’naan describes his subject matter as urgent music with a message that talks about the situation in his home country of Somalia, calling for an end to the violence and bloodshed. “Soobax,” meaning come out, was his first music video and the most famous song on his album Dusty Foot Philosopher. The following excerpt from “Soobax” (2009) shows

K’naan’s resistance and a return to the land as a protest of the colonial and imperial forces evidenced in the wars that rendered him a refugee outside his own country, ruining the once beautiful homeland of his memories.

. . . Left alone, all alone

Settle your issues on your own

What to do? Where to go?

I got to be a refugee damn, soobax

Mogadishu used to be

A place where the world would come to see . . .

5 Regent Park is Canada’s oldest and largest social housing project. Like Jane-Finch, it has a high demographic of children and youth eighteen years and under, and the majority of families are classified as low- income. It is one of the city’s poorest and most crime-ridden areas. Regent Park residents come from diverse cultural backgrounds including many new Canadians from Africa, Asia and Latin America. There are more than sixty different first languages represented, making Regent Park one of Toronto’s most culturally diverse neighbourhoods. http://www.torontorealestateboard.com/about_GTA/Neighbourhood/gta/neighbourhoods/downtown/regent-park/

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My skin needs to feel the sand, the sun

I’m tired of the cold, god damn soobax . . .

I work for the struggle, I don’t work for dough

I mean what I say, I don’t do it for show

Somalia needs all gun men right out the door . . . 6

K’naan went to Kenya where he shot the music video against a backdrop of matatus

(local taxis) and regular people on Nairobi’s streets singing and dancing to the song. Fusing

Somali traditional music, African drums, Hip hop and reggae, K’naan laments his home country,

Somalia, partly in his native language and partly in English.

For second generation African youth such as Canadian-born, Vancouver-based rapper

HeatWave, it is the memories lived through parents that inform life experiences and music. In

January 2014, HeatWave visited Uganda for the first time. The visit was a life-changing moment for the artist:

The motherland has been a very humbling experience for me. It has brought me a

new found enlightenment and it has humbled me in many ways. Drinking and

bathing in clean water and never running out of water is a blessing. . .. These things

are not very common in Uganda unless you are very, very fortunate or you come

from a wealthy family.

6 genius.com/Knaan-soobax-lyrics

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I had a chance to see where both my parents are from, where they grew up and where they took each other on their first dates before I was born. I also got a chance to see where they buried all the historic and important people in my family. . ..

I inherited land in Uganda this year and I plan on starting a farm business out there. . ..

Since I’ve had a chance to see where it all started and where it will all end, it gives me a new feeling about my life. Now I’m just living to live, every minute, every hour, every moment is pretty much a blessing to me. . .. I played a promo show at Sabrina’s

Pub downtown Kampala, and Uganda was very receptive to my art. That alone feels like a home-run for me, being able to live my dream like that and share my music with the motherland in general. . .. My Journey has been well worth it, I’ve made a lot of friends, gained new fans outside my core audience and gained wisdom from very wise people. There’s not too much more in life that I think I can ask for but I will continue to keep pushing forward in whatever I decide to do in my future. But best believe, I’m already content with what life has thrown my way already.

There was a time in my life where I had thoughts that maybe I wouldn’t be able to see or live past 25 years as a result of my lifestyle as a youngin’. I always thought that things would creep up on me but now that I am in a different space and I’m living righteously it’s easier for me to stay focused and do what I love the most—getting to the music and putting out the best art that I can possibly put out. (Kasskills, 2014, n.p.)

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HeatWave’s claim to his roots and ancestry became sources of healing. Reclaiming his ethnicity became his resistance to the marginalization and exclusion of his lived experiences in Canada.

For these artists, Indigenous land is a space of contestation and resistance, as well as a space of spiritual healing. This is apparent in the refrain from his song “Life Changing”

(HeatWave, 2014a), and with a music video filmed during his visit to Uganda:

. . . My life has changed since I returned to Africa

knowing my roots and knowing the truth

Proud of his newfound history and relatives he did not know, HeatWave calls them out in the song and acknowledges his connection to the land and relatives as the foundation of his strength.

What’s up fam, what’s up baba [father or uncle]

What’s up to my cousins, what’s up jaja [granny]

Lots, lots of fam shed a lot of tears.

My history is worth 750 years

Lots of energy that can keep you strong . . .

. . . I’m back home, loving UG...

In his music video Relatives (HeatWave, 2014b), also filmed in Uganda, he proudly proclaims

. . . I got some relatives

As a matter of fact I got culture

I got deep roots, I got family, I represent so heavily.

Like Kenzo, HeatWave shoots his videos away from the luxurious cityscapes that depict materialism, preferring the countryside landscapes and the city in the horizon, making reference to the love and spirit of the poor in the sites of economic marginality:

. . . In the slums

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that’s where they show me love

Other than his newfound ancestry, however, HeatWave calls on people to share knowledge, and talks about how he is gaining wisdom.

Noted artist Arami The Corrector, originally known as YogE, is an immigrant youth of

Eritrean descent. He was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and moved to Canada at the age of three.

Arami The Corrector shot his music video Signs (Kaskills, 2013a) in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest and one of its most economically marginalized communities, featuring Octopizzo, a Hip hop artist from Kibera (Octopizzo, 2013, n.p.). Arami talked about his experience in Kenya, saying,

“the smiles that rose on all faces I saw, it wasn’t what I expected but had me on another level of energy. You ain’t seen hustle and happiness until you’ve been to East Africa” (Kasskills, 2013a, n.p.). The video opens with an intro by Octtopizzo of an insider’s view of the Kibera:

We’re in the real town. This is the hood that makes the hood in America look like

paradise. . .. This is Kibera baby, still proud, nobody is crying, everybody is poor though,

but everybody is humbled just to be alive. So man, fuck poverty man, we live here.

This is followed by Arami’s opening line in which he raps in the first person, although it is obvious that the message is intended for the world to see the poverty that surrounds them.

Why can’t I listen to the signs,

they are plain and simple

right in front of my eyes

Act like I don’t hear them . . .

Asked about his music and why he changed his name from YogE, Arami responds:

Knowing my culture and where I came from and knowing I still have a lot to learn and

way more to see, I knew I didn’t have to rap about the regular “ish” you hear every day.

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I’ve been back home to East Africa four times about to go on the fifth. Losing both my

grandparents last year was a big influence to the change of my name. Sayin R.I.P to that

brotha YogE and taking the name my grandpa gave me. “Arami” in my language means

“teacher” or “the one to correct.” So, it was pretty easy when I decided I was going with

The Corrector. A lot of what’s going on in the world today needs correcting; I’m just

trying to let ‘em know with my music. (Kasskills, 2013a, n.p.)

For Arami, reclaiming his Indigenous African name as his stage name was a result of soul searching, a way to reclaim who he is as an African through a spiritual awakening fostered by his visit to the motherland. His stage name recalls the significance and meanings of African

Indigenous names. Ogiorumua (2015, n.p.) states that,

within the African cosmology, a name signifies one’s cultural background, history and

identity. African names are coded with meanings, which usually originate from any

historical events or current happenings. These names are replete with literal meanings

and acknowledgement, wishes, blessing, challenges, or rituals.

Hip hop artist Selekwa, born to a French-Canadian mother and a Tanzanian father, goes by his

African name as his stage name rather than Joseph Benac, the name given to him by his mother:

As a youngster, he was often told that the name his mother chose for him, Joseph Benac,

had a higher purpose while his father’s side of the family called him “Selekwa Mtebe,” or

“Treasured Child,” which most certainly describes this truly gifted and talented artist.

(Hip hop Canada, 2012, n.p.)

The work of African-born immigrant youth is not always focused on a social cause from back home. Kenyan-born, Sudanese spoken-word artist Yusra Khogali roots her work in a Hip hop culture that speaks mainly to the poverty and violence she saw growing up in Regent Park.

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Khogali (2014, n.p.) calls herself a social justice advocate and humanist who uses her art to challenge “oppressive systems, institutions and practices.” In “Blood Music,” for example,

Khogali (2011) speaks about the plight of Black men in a racist and white supremacist society, and cautions Black men against being made into pawns and selling their souls for materialism and superficiality. This is a commentary on the commercialization of Hip hop as it is often portrayed in mainstream media, and references the commodification of Black culture by billion- dollar corporations:

. . . Real men use their power and resource to create change

Because generations are at stake, we need to stop this cycle of mistakes and go as a race.

Shad K.’s 2013 single “Fam Jam” lyrics touched on immigration policy, colonialism, oppression and First Nation rights (Wheeler, 2013, n.p). The Kenyan-born and Juno Award– winning rap artist’s parents fled the Rwandan genocide, later migrating to Canada where he grew up in the suburbs and earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Wilfrid Laurier

University and Simon Fraser University, respectively. Shad K. draws from his African background in some of his music in which he identifies as Kenyan. His self-made debut album,

When This Is Over (Quinlan, 2005), was recognized for its lyricism and focus on social issues as heard in the track “I’ll Never Understand,” which examines the Rwandese genocide and features the poetry of his mother, Bernadette Kabango.

Like Arami The Corrector and Kenzo, Shad K. takes on sociopolitical issues in East

Africa and how they affect us all. Shad K.’s (2005) music video is replete with the bodies, mass graves and skulls of the men, women and children killed during the Rwandan genocide. His mother’s poignant voice in the background speaks of the cruel murders of her family, and the refrain “I’ll never understand” punctuates her verses. The video opens with a caption of the

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words of Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the UN, 1997–2006: “In their greatest hour of need, the world failed the people of Rwanda.” Shad K. contemplates the brutality of the genocide in the first verse:

I’ll never understand how flesh being torn apart feels

or how after all the suffering on the hot hills or the green rich fields

where they killed all the young, cold and numb

under the light of a golden sun.

Shad K., like Arami The Corrector, questions why the rest of the world turned the other way:

. . . And I’ll never know what’s more sad,

the fact that they could have been spared

or the fact that till this day nobody cares for the innocent

victims of a full fledged holocaust . . .

they always turned a blind eye

And I’ll never understand why

The closing caption of the music video reads: “We were told it would never happen again.” A photo of gunmen with the word “Darfur” in the background slowly materializes on the screen, and the caption ends with “it is.”

This rendition of history evokes memory through his mother to reclaim “back home,”

Rwanda, as he tries to come to terms with a heritage of a painful past. Not only does Shad K. use his platform as a Hip hop artist to speak against the atrocities committed during the Rwandan genocide, he also uses it as a call to action, a catalyst for change and awareness so that the world will not close its eyes to the pain and suffering of African people.

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Charry (2012) contends that American rap artists reference their history by going back to old sounds of Black music to find new ways to make rap relevant and unique. American deejays, for example,

“crate-dig-search through crates of obscure vinyl record albums for new sounds . . . [A]s

African rap has matured and second and third generations have emerged, both more

critical and more commercial voices have emerged sometimes in the same time and

place. One widespread effect has been to rekindle interests in older local traditions”

(Charry, 2012, p. 18).

Rap provides access to historical narratives for Black youth of African descent. Charry (2012, p.

18) makes reference to the rap music of African youth who grew up in France and the way in which they navigate their African identity, although they have not experienced Africa in the way their parents did. He says that their relationship with Africa is varied, “from a kind of love or nostalgia for the Africa of their parents, which brings them in close contact with African music, to Africa being just one symbol of their identity among others.” This “meeting of generations”

(p. 19) is a way for African youth to evoke their African roots and to link to their African cultures and African Indigenous knowledges.

For artists who go back home to Indigenous lands imbued with colonial intonations of

Europe’s underdevelopment of Africa and locus for imperialistic capitalism, the impoverished spaces and lands on which these artists make their music videos engender new meanings. Music and dance become an anti-colonial critique of colonial representations, reclaiming the land as a site of empowerment.

Through the act of going “back home” to Indigenous lands, reclaiming underdeveloped and impoverished spaces, Black Canadian Hip hop artists of African descent instill new

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meanings on the land through Indigenous bodies, Indigenous languages and anti-colonial narratives that resist dominant ideology and marginalization and bring about healing. For these

African artists, decolonization and spiritual healing are attached to Indigenous land. They reclaim the past as a form of authenticity and claim to the land grounds their beliefs in their ancestors. This is imperative for decolonization to take place.

For some artists, stage names recall the significance and meanings of traditional African names: YogE, for instance, felt compelled to take on the name Arami which was given to him by his grandfather. For my son, it was during the critical period of his teenage years that he was introduced to rap in Nigeria, learnt pidgin and regained confidence as he learned and lived on

African Indigenous land. Hence, youth of African descent reposition the rap linguistic and musical genre and, in different ways, acquire and rearticulate the Hip hop cultural identity

(Ibrahim, 2008, p. 243). By appropriating and owning Hip hop culture and rap music, Black youth of African descent are able to articulate their experiences in their physical locations and through memory. Rap is a way to reclaim their African identity and Indigeneity, and to resist the colonial and imperial position that the white dominant race imposes on them. Wa Thiong’o

(1986, p. 3) has put forward that the oppressed and the exploited of the earth maintain their defiance: liberty from theft. But the biggest weapon wielded and actually daily unleashed by imperialism against that collective defiance is the cultural bomb. The effect of a cultural bomb is to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and ultimately in themselves. It makes them see their past as one wasteland of non-achievement and it makes them want to distance themselves from that wasteland. It makes them want to identify with that which is furthest removed from themselves; for instance, with other people’s languages rather than their own.

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Black and African youth in Canada carry racialized identities in a society where prejudice, discrimination and intolerance are the norm. The dominant culture continuously seeks to incarcerate and violently discipline Black bodies to the point of killing them, as seen in the white police shooting deaths of young Black males in the United States. Mbembe’s (2003) theory of necropolitics talks about biopower in which the body politic allows the control of certain bodies considered disposable. Drawing from Foucault, he posits that racism is above all a technology aimed at permitting the exercise of biopower, “that old sovereign right of death.” In the economy of biopower, the function of racism is to regulate the distribution of death and to make possible the murderous functions of the state (Mbembe 2003, p. 17).

Mbembe points out that race figures prominently in the calculus of biopower and suggests that “the politics of race is ultimately linked to the politics of death” (ibid). There is a need for African Black youth to be grounded in an anti-colonial cultural and social system that builds them up to resist everyday racism—in the classroom, on the street, in the workplace.

Decolonization is psychologically degrading and dehumanizing; ultimately, resistance is a spiritual struggle and life-changing process. It is imperative that African youth have access to cultural and social systems that ground them.

I have shown how (re)visting their African Indigenous lands can be a form of empowerment and healing for youth of African descent. Youth programs, therefore, that invest in visits to African Indigenous lands would greatly benefit African youth. This experience gave confidence to my son and to many other youth artists discussed here. However, returning to

Canada and facing racism once again can erode the benefits of a onetime visit. Repeat and long- term visitation programs that allow participants to experience Indigenous lands and acquire

Indigenous knowledges, including learning Indigenous languages, are imperative in making any

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profound change and bringing about healing in the lives of African youth. Understanding the impact and change such visitations create in the lives of the artists and youth can go a long way to building a sense of empowerment, normalcy, and confidence.

Such youth visitation programs have been proven to work. Canadian government– supported international student youth exchange programs for twelve- to eighteen-year-olds, such as the Canadian Education Exchange Foundation (CEEF) and YES Canada Student Exchange, are in line with the outcomes put forward in this chapter for visiting Indigenous lands. The goals are listed as enhancing language proficiency, increasing awareness of other cultures, fostering global awareness and promoting personal growth and development.7 National programs such as

Exchanges Canada, facilitating youth exchanges across Canada, list their goals as enhancing knowledge and understanding of Canada among participants, connecting Canadians with one another, and developing a sense of Canadian identity and attachment to Canada by helping youth appreciate the diversity and the shared aspects of the Canadian experience.8 The educator exchange program run through CEEF also lays out its objectives for educators as providing not only opportunities for personal and professional development, but also opportunities to foster global perspectives and to nurture respect and awareness of diverse cultures.9 So far, there are no

African countries in the destinations listed in the international Canadian programs named here.

These programs recognize that personal growth, a sense of identity, language proficiency and the benefits of cultural immersion are vital to creating a better world for all. With language as a crucial tool for decolonization, learning any African Indigenous language and pidgin is a form of

7 http://www.ceef.ca/student_intro.html 8 www.exchanges.gc.ca (http://pch.gc.ca/eng/1266324590531) 9 http://www.ceef.ca/educator_intro.html

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resistance and decolonization, embracing African languages as opposed to European languages imposed on Africans by the colonizers. Hip hop is synonymous with resistance and so is its use of language. Wa Thiong’o (1986) puts forward that the politics of language is about national, democratic, and human liberation.

The call for the rediscovery and the resumption of our language is a call for a

regenerative reconnection with the millions of revolutionary tongues in Africa and the

world over demanding liberation. It is a call for the rediscovery of the real language of

humankind: the language of struggle. . .. In struggle is our history, our language and our

being. (p. 108)

The Black struggle is about resistance. A study on Black youth is incomplete without understanding the medium of Hip hop and its musical styling, rap. Rap should be taught in schools so that its purpose is understood. A history of rap—including the ways in which rap has evolved and the appropriation of rap in African countries and by languages and pidgins—would benefit not only African youth but incorporating rap into the mainstream curriculum would also lead to a much wider appreciation of the art form and a better understanding of its politics of resistance, its language and poetry. It would place the Black struggle into perspective for the dominant culture. When youth of African descent understand and appreciate this art form and all it represents, they will create more responsible art that is imbued with political meanings that inform and empower (Henderson, 2009; Walcott, 2003).

Rap has been labeled as violent and degrading to women, and therefore given little chance to be understood, especially by mainstream institutions. A history of rap would show its development, just like any history learned in schools. A study of world wars, revolutionary wars and civil wars are acceptable forms of violence to be studied in the mainstream, yet somehow rap

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history as an art form of struggle and resistance does not qualify as worth studying. As much as the histories of the wars fought around the world lead to an understanding of how nation-states came to be and the politics that govern them developed, a study of rap creates a better understanding of the Black struggle and resistance manifested through art forms that were very important in the Black resistance movements in North America.

Rap music is a part of the legitimate history of Black people. Just as all European and

North American states were built on violence, the origins of rap come from the violence imposed on African and Black people through slavery, racism and segregation produce by white- supremacist states. Rap is simply a response to this violence. Music was the main form of self- preservation and non-violent form of resistance that Black people could undertake during slavery. Negro spirituals and other forms of music were used to tell stories—for self- and cultural preservation, to celebrate life, to mourn a life and to sustain life in hard times (Omo-Osagie,

2007). It still remains one of the main and most widely used non-violent forms of resistance today because it appeals to the masses.

Diedre Glenn Paul (2000) argues that rap should be used in the classroom as a site of critical inquiry because it is “a vehicle through which teachers can privilege student voices . . . while simultaneously teaching them to interrogate those voices” (p. 247). Giroux and Simon

(1989) also affirm that rap can foster a “pedagogy which engages popular culture in order to affirm rather than mute the voice of the student” (p. 251). Paul asserts that through these dialogues “teachers are exposed to a new way to potentially approach students and culturally synchronize literacy instruction” (p. 251). They also can “critically explore significant issues attached to language, culture, and power through texts to which students relate in their everyday lives” (p. 251).

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Paul (2000) defines cultural synchronization as a “harmony established between the cultural systems of schools, diverse groups of learners, and the communities from which those learners come” (p. 247). Black cultural manifestations identifiable through cultural norms, language, behaviours and attitudes are for the most part found in lower socioeconomic status communities where racial isolation is prevalent and assimilation into the majority culture is minimal (Irvine, 1991, p. 24). Teachers, who are often cultural outsiders in the communities they work, tend to misunderstand or misinterpret the cultural nuances. Gay (1993) shows that poor students living in large urban areas tend to have teachers who are middle class and live in small- to medium-size suburban communities. Because many of these teachers have been classically educated they privilege Eurocentric epistemological models and high culture art forms. On the other hand, their urban-center students and communities value popular culture art forms and privilege experiential knowledge (Diedre, 2000, p. 249).

In order to develop an effective pedagogical repertoire, it is imperative that there is a shared cultural synchronization between many teachers and their students. A lack of cultural continuity would result in cultural misunderstanding, resistance from students, a low teacher expectation for student success and self-fulfilling prophecies of student failure (Paul, 2000, p.

247). Popular culture is a significant part of the experiences of Black youth in Toronto, especially in communities with a high demographic of Black people, which communities also tend to be marginalised. Black art and visual representations of Blackness are all around them and Hip hop and rap are part of that world.

For Black people in a predominantly White state, a site where racially motivated violence is used against Black people on a daily basis, especially young Black males, rap music is their most accessible non-violent form of resistance. Rap holds a critical place in the study of Black

219

history. Rap’s artistic delivery styles can manifest vivid raw emotions, particularly anger.

Unfortunately, this anger is not viewed within the context of the history of White supremacist states exercising violence against Black people. When such misrepresentations of stylistic choices are not read in context, it fosters an environment of racism that produces stereotypes and negative labels.

The portrayal of rap as violent and degrading to women should be read in the same light as the history of White women in any historical period of any Western nation. The history and struggles of White women to earn the right to vote, to earn as much as their male counterparts, to be fairly represented in different institutions, and to have equal rights in different affairs in life, including the right of protection from violence, are read within national histories. The history of

Black women and the violence and abuse against Black women also ought to be read within the broader context of racism, feminism, colonialism, slavery and imperialism in the national histories of Canada, the United States and European countries. Understanding the history of rap is not only beneficial to the dominant group but also fosters a better understanding of our own history so that Black and African youth are aware of the political messages they portray through their music. From a stylistic point of view, Black women’s voices are not silenced. Black musical cultures have played significant roles in the resistance politics of Black people from time immemorial, including Black women’s resistances. Other genres favoured by Black women as a medium of expression include rhythm and blues and soul—all are replete with songs of Black women talking back to their men and “holding their own.”

This chapter has explored ways in which youth of African descent, including migrant and first generation youth in Canada, appropriate rap, the musical style of Hip hop, and use it as a tool of resistance as they make sense of their own identities within the context of racism and

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inequality in a White supremacist state. For artists who go “back home” and make music on

African Indigenous lands, performing on Indigenous lands is necessarily a way for African youth to reclaim their identities and histories and bring about spiritual healing as they imbue new and different meanings on Africa’s colonised lands. Local African artists who have appropriated Hip hop in Indigenous languages and pidgins use it as a form of resistance to speak against the vices and injustices in society, countering racist images used by development agencies in the West.

Since going “back home” to Indigenous lands is necessarily a process of healing for youth of

African descent who face racism on a daily basis, it is imperative that programs, notably student and teacher exchange programs, include African countries as destinations to foster relationships in schools that create an understanding of our African cultures and languages. Mainstream curriculum that teaches rap as a history of resistance in the Black struggle is another key method to connect Hip hop to the identities and struggles facing African diasporic youth.

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Appendix B: Consent For Participation in Personal Interview

Project Title:" Indigenous knowledge and African Immigrant Mothers in Toronto" Name of Researcher: Annette Bazira-Okafor Contact information: Address: 12 Monte Cristi, Maple On. L6A 3H8 Tel: (647)295-5705

Department: Social Justice Education Name of Institution: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

Date: ______Project Description: As African women and mothers, our historical and cultural knowledge and practices from our countries of origin inform our lives and experiences in Canada. This includes how we mother and care for our children. The purpose of this study is to understand how African immigrant mothers use their cultural knowledge and experiences to raise their children within the Canadian context. Purpose of interviews: To collect information on knowledges and practices related to African mothering in African traditional societies that have been transmitted across generations of immigrant women in Toronto; to understand how knowledges and mothering practices of African women in Toronto have changed within a globalized and diasporic context, and how African women have responded to these changes. Description of Activities: You will participate in a one-on-one interview in a safe, comfortable and mutually agreed-on-space with the researcher where the researcher will ask you questions related to your mothering and childcare experience/practices in Canada. You will be invited to address each of the questions as you see fit. You may leave or stop the conversation at any time without providing reasons for doing so. The conversation will be audio recorded so that the researcher can revisit the interview for the purposes of analysis and writing a report of findings. If you agree, a copy of the interview will be provided to you upon request. At any time, you can request that audio recording stop. Your data such as name and demographic information as well as audio record of interview will be stored and protected by the researcher. Should you choose to withdraw from the study, the researcher will destroy any audio and written records of the interview when project is completed. There are no consequences for your withdrawal from the research. Where it is impossible to withdraw information such as in the case where interviews from 2 or 3 generations of women from the same family are conversational, your personal data will be eliminated from the completed project, and you will be informed of this impossibility and of the withdrawal of your personal data. Confidentiality: Your name and any information you provide will be treated as confidential and will not be shared with other parties, or indicate any written or non-written documents related to the project.

If you have any concerns or questions about your rights as research participants with the study Please contact the following people: 1. The PI, Annette Bazira-Okafor by emailing me at [email protected] or calling me (647)295-5705. 2. The research Supervisor, Prof. Miglena Todorova, by emailing her at [email protected] or calling her (416) 978-0005. 3. The Human Research Ethics Program [email protected], 416-946-3273 Please note that the research ethics program may have confidential access to data to help ensure participant protection procedures are followed—i.e., consistent with: http://www.research.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/documents/2014/10/GUIDE-FOR- INFORMED-CONSENT-V-Oct-2014.pdf There is no known harm associated with participation in this interview. PARTICIPATION IN THIS INTERVIEW IS VOLUNTARY. IF YOU CHOOSE TO PARTICIPATE IN IT, YOU MAY WITHDRAW AT ANY TIME. By signing this form I agree that the interview activities and purpose have been explained to me. Name of participant: ______Signature:______Date:______

Appendix C: Preliminary Questionnaire

1. Your Name: ______2. Age: ______3. Country of origin: ______4. How long have you lived in Canada? ______5. How many children do you have? ______6. Where were your children born (country)? ______7. If your children were not born in Canada, how old were they when they came to Canada? ______8. How old are your children now? 9. What did you do for a living back home? profession 10. What do you do for a living now?

Appendix D

Interview Questionnaire

Interview Questions on Cultural and Traditional Practices of Child Bearing and Rearing Among African Women In Toronto.

Family planning and fertility 1. Following African customs, how did people (you) decide on how many children to have and when? 2. Following African customs, how were young women(you) taught about their (your) body(ies) and child birth? 3. Who were (are) the people that did (do) the traditional teachings and how did (do) they go about it? 4. What contemporary practices (were) have been adapted in family planning and fertility? 5. How were(are) the traditional and contemporary practices combined? Celebrating Pregnancy 1. Following African traditions, how did (do) family and community look upon pregnant women and what cultural practices accompan(y)ied pregnant women? 2. What traditional beliefs does family and community hold about pregnant women? 3. How were(are) pregnant women traditionally taken care of? 4. What cultural ceremonies accompan(y)ied pregnant women? 5. What contemporary practices (were) have been adapted in the celebration of pregnancy? 6. How are (were) the traditional and contemporary practices combined? Child Birth 1. How is childbirth traditionally celebrated? 2. How is the actual birthing and labour done culturally or traditionally? For example, who is present, their roles, and what rituals follow(ed) child birth? 3. What traditional ceremonies accompan(y)ied childbirth? 4. In postnatal care how (are) were new mothers traditionally taken care of? For example, as pertains to nutrition, care for new the new mother, work etc.

5. How was (is) family and community involved? Interview Questions on Cultural and Traditional Practices of Child Bearing and Rearing Among African Women In Toronto.

6. What contemporary practices (were) have been adapted in child birth? 7. How are (were) the traditional and contemporary practices in child birth combined? Nurturing of babies 1. How are new born babies traditionally taken care of? For example, as pertains to nutrition, caring for the new born etc. 2. What cultural perceptions or worldviews accompany new born babies? 3. What traditional ceremonies accompany babies and what is their significance? 4. Who are the people that officiate the traditional ceremonies? 5. What contemporary practices (were) have been adapted in the nurturing of babies? 6. How are (were) the traditional and contemporary practices in the nurturing of babies combined? Raising children 1. How are (were) young children traditionally taught in the home? For example, as pertains to discipline, values, play, work/chores, training etc. 2. What customary teachings are (were) specifically taught to girls and boys and by whom? 3. How are (were) youth customarily prepared for adulthood responsibilities? 4. What customary childhood and life transitions were (are) celebrated and how? 5. What customary youth transitions to adulthood were (are) celebrated and how? 6. What contemporary practices (were) have been adapted in the raising of children? 7. How are (were) the customary and contemporary practices in raising children combined?