AHAVI: Letter of Request for financial assistance

William Goldiet, President of AHAVI
Feb 27, 2023

'In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends'. Martin Luther King, Jr.

To: Grant Reviewing Committee of District of View Royal

Re: Letter of request for financial assistance to support the Intermunicipal Youth Conference on Racial Harassment and Verbal Bullying in our society on June 19, 2023

Dear Grant Reviewing Committee, Royal View,

On behalf the members of African Association of Vancouver Island (AHAVI), I have the honor to write this letter to request for approval of our grant application to support the Intermunicipal Youth Conference on Racial Harassment and Verbal Bullying on June 19, 2023, to facilitate constructive conversation about these hurtful behaviors.

AHAVI is the union of the Afro-Canadians who immigrate from 54 African countries and from Caribbean states to create united and strong community by cooperatively organizing and supporting events and activities to meet the needs of Africans, people of African descent, and friends of Africa on Vancouver Island (13 municipalities of the Capital Regional District).

AHAVI works with African Union to implement the AU’s call for closer collaboration between Africa and Diaspora to directly involve Diasporas in social, cultural, and economic development of the continent.

Our community will not be safe if all are not safe. We heard about random attacks with machete in BC and arrow shot at car with children inside in Victoria. Many richest countries vaccinated their own populations against Covid-19, but the world GDP losses of up to US$11.2 trillion and price of gas and food to continue to rise because of the world interdependent relationship. Meaning, what affects one country, or one person affects other country or another person somewhere.

Racial harassment and verbal bullying are the common issues faced by students and young people of every municipality. These hurtful behaviors affect mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing of the victims and lead to poor performing in their academic life, force them to withdraw from pursuing education and expose them to alcoholism, abuse of substance, depression, suicidality, and homicide.

It Takes a Village to Raise a Child:

The future vitality of our community depends on our joint responsibility. Parents do their best to preserve the family and keep their children safe at home. But parents are not in charge after children leave home to school, playing grounds, sport fields or recreational centres. It is a communal responsibility to work together to ensure the growth and safety of our children. We must come together to teach and instill in children, youth, and all community stakeholders a sense of responsibility to value and respect other people as each one expects to be loved and to be valued and respected by other people.

International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (1965):

The States Parties acknowledge the compassion, sympathy, respect, caring, tolerance, equity, and love are the fundamental characteristics that people share as human beings to coexist. They describe prejudices or giving preference to one group over another based-on ethnicity, gender, disability, or class as inhuman norms and urge to treat them as non-existent. The States Parties to International Convention on Elimination of all forms of racial discrimination condemn racial discrimination and urge all states parties to pursue all appropriate measures to guarantee the right of every citizen by preventing and eliminating all forms of racial discrimination.

Description of the Intermunicipal Youth Conference:

The Intermunicipal Youth Conference is planned to facilitate constructive conversation about these hurtful behaviors to raise public awareness about the elephant in the room (the legacies of past transgressions, racist policies, and practices) that created social stratification and racial segregation and through intermunicipal cooperation and solidarity. The conference seeks also to promote culture of tolerance and proper manner to eliminate and prohibit all forms of racial harassment and verbal bullying in our society.

The primary target of the project will be the young people (students) between 12 to 25 years of age and adults. The project will be implemented by in-person and live streaming to allow those who cannot attend in-person to attend from location of their convenient (from home schools, work or on journey). Parents, teachers, municipal officials, and police will be invited to participate and learn about policies, the laws and programs that prohibit racial discrimination and ethnic bullying. The conference will be conducted through four sessions.

The musical program:

This session is to convey message through art and to connect the attendees with each other to enjoy and sing together.

Sharing lived experiences:

The conference will give a chance for the victims of racial discrimination and verbal bullying to share their lived experiences. This will help the participants in understanding emotional, psychological, and physical harm caused by these behaviors. Sharing lived experiences also will motivate the participants to examine their own stereotypes, privileges and understand how others are impacted and hurt by negative biases and engage in responsible discussion for building cross-cultural relationships and inclusive society.

Plenary session:

Our compassionate, heartfelt, and empathetic speakers will create a safe and engaging environment for youth at the beginning of their talk. They will talk about the forms of racism, bullying, stereotypes, racist ideologies, policies, about their impact on victims and about and solutions to these hurtful behaviors.

Small focus group:

The participants will be break into small focus groups to interact or discussion on given question and brainstorm on how to solve solution to challenge or problem post by racism. The attendees to small focus group will re-join the large group discussion to share what they learn and their perspectives on topic.

Benefits for all residents of Capital District Development from conference:

The participants from the Oak Bay will contribute their perspectives, viewpoints, and ideas to the conference and racial harassment and verbal bullying. They will also understand the racist policies and ideologies that perpetuate racism and bullying that take many lives of Canadians and learn laws, policies and programs that eliminate and prohibit racism and bullying. They will also build intermunicipal relationships with other youth from other districts and establish shared and coordinated responsibility to combat racism and bullying to create inclusive and tolerant society. We expect more than 135 participants to attend in person and more than 205 participants from each municipality to attend through live streaming from their schools or works.

We appreciate you for your generosity and consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

William Goldiet, president of African Association of Vancouver Island