Experience Our Programs & Events

Together we can power our future.

DISCOVERY
& Learning

Strengthening skills and knowledge

EMPOWERMENT
& Solutions

Building a talent pool with technical skills

WELLNESS
& Health

Promoting mental, spiritual, physical health and well-being

CONNECTION
& Community

Creating new connections and sharing cultural experiences

Zanana Akande “Welcome to Blackhurst” Art Gallery

Audience: Everyone
The Zanana Akande “Welcome to Blackhurst” Art Gallery provides an opportunity for professional and new/emerging visual artists to showcase their work in a community-based setting.

Windows to Opportunity

Audience: Youth
The Windows to Opportunity (WTO) is a 28-week program that supports the positive development of Black youth through mentorships with professional artists. The WTO program provides hands-on learning in five different fields of study: computer graphics/animation, dance, event planning, media arts, and stand-up comedy.

Welcome to Blackhurst

Audience: Everyone
The Welcome to Blackhurst program engages and educates all Canadians – particularly students – to the rich legacy of the history-makers of Toronto’s Bathurst-Bloor and Annex neighbourhoods. It incorporates hands-on activities that readily connect participants to the local history of the surrounding community. Visitors have participated in walking tours of the neighborhood, coffee ceremonies, sing-a-longs with musicians, and listened to history lectures of this iconic neighbourhood.

Walk With Excellence

Audience: Youth
The Walk with Excellence event is an urban rite-of-passage of moving graduating high school students to post-secondary education. The Walk’s objective is to demonstrate student achievement and academic success. Similarly themed processions happen annually across the City of Toronto as well as in Ottawa, Ontario. These processions comprise students, school principals, teachers, family, and partners.

The Literary Salon

Audience: Professionals
The Literary Salon is a program for writers, journalists, illustrators, and authors to gather, create, co-create, collaborate and showcase works in progress and completed work. This regular event offers writers the opportunity to workshop their stories and network with publishers and other literary practitioners.

The Black & Caribbean Book Affair

Audience: Everyone
The Black & Caribbean Book Affair present and animate the works of Black and Caribbean writers in Canada and the diaspora. This is a three-day festival held in the fall.

SOKONI

Audience: All/ Entrepreneurs
Named after the Swahili word for marketplace, this pop-up experience runs for 3 days (Fri-Sun) and invites the community in to experience the sites, smells, and textures from the African diaspora. Visitors can shop the wares of local artisans.

Shake Up Your Life

Audience: Adults, Seniors
Weekly program that welcomes older adults of African and Caribbean descent to meet, invoke memory, have fun and partake in various activities. Participants engage in ‘show and tell’, music film, dancing, networking, and storytelling..

Schulich Business Certification

Audience: Students, Adults
This complimentary 8-week Introduction to business course is delivered in conjunction with the Schulich School of Business targeted for the community with a resulting business certificate at the end of each cohort.

People’s TV

Audience: Adults
The People’s TV provides an opportunity to document content from other ADBCC programs, and to maintain our past and living history and culture in a structured archive that is available online.

ICanLaunch

Audience: Students, professionals
The ICanLaunch Stream is a career development stream focused on elevating individuals within their desired professional stream. Events and activities include: career fairs and student placement, networking events, mentorship, professional development sessions.

Entrepreneurship – Pop-Up Experience

Audience: 15+
Entrepreneurship – Pop-Up Experience helps to guide entrepreneurs from the idea/concept to the showcasing and sale of their products. This experience offers entrepreneurs and/or designers an opportunity to learn about customer service, merchandising, branding, marketing, on-line services, and selling. Includes the opportunity to display wares through a marketplace monthly during the 12-week program.

Emancipation Day Underground Freedom Train Ride

Audience: Everybody
The Emancipation Day “Underground Freedom Train” Ride is symbolic of the role of the Underground Railroad within Canada’s history. This train ride is a recognition of the historic date of Emancipation Day on August 1st when slavery was abolished in the British Empire. ADBCC partners with the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and the train route travels along the TTC subway from Union Station to Sheppard West Station. This annual event is open to the public and may include poetry readings, musical entertainment, networking, and special activities.

Discourse and Desserts

Audience: Adults
Discourse and Desserts – offers stimulating dialogues on the diverse ways practitioners identify and redefine solutions that benefit people who are marginalized. Using the Each One Teach One approach, you will interact, learn and engage with other educators, activists, and students about the contemporary ways they challenge society’s status quo and make meaningful contributions to social justice.

Dinner With…

Audience: Professionals
“Dinner With . . .” Series – provides participants the opportunity to share dinner and conversation with trailblazers and game-changers. Thirty guests have the opportunity to engage, initiate, learn and share information on various topics. Fee charged.

Artists in Community “Residence”

Audience: Professional/ New or emerging
Artists in Community – Artist on-site working on a time-limited project; creating different pieces of work for ADBCC. The general public is invited to presentations or performances.

Art to Heart

Audience: Adults
Art nights: paint or art with someone from community impact/support for mental health art therapy.

Anti-Black Racism/ Corporate Cultural Engagement

Audience: Corporate Training
Corporate Cultural Engagement – Group sessions offered to corporations to learn about and experience African and Caribbean history and culture. Fee charged.