'CELEBRATE WHO WE ARE’: Black Girl Excellence program empowering racialized youth
Rhythm & Blues Cambridge aims to uplift in safe space with help from WRCF
Growing up as a young Black girl in Cambridge, Krysanne McLean had a built-in support network. Her street was filled with Jamaican families who were Canadian newcomers just like hers.
In high school, she found a safe space on the basketball court and competed in track and field alongside many of her Jamaican friends. Her mom worked in education and her dad worked in counselling.
“Always encouraging positivity, upliftment,” McLean said of her parents.
She felt safe and supported in many aspects of her life.
“You felt like you were connected,” McLean said.
Perhaps more due to life’s ebbs and flows than any one reason, that connectivity and sense of community has ceased to exist as it once did.
“It’s totally night and day,” said McLean, mother of four with three daughters and one son. “The experience of my children has been very different than what I had. I think there are two (racialized) families around here, but everybody’s older. It’s hard for my kids, especially my oldest -- she's experienced racism in school.”
Around the time when her oldest was struggling, McLean was struggling, too. She went looking for connections in Cambridge that were specific to her Black culture but came up empty-handed. When she expanded her search elsewhere in Waterloo Region, there were some Black-focused events and celebrations happening in the community, but on a limited scale.
Wanting to fill that gap, McLean, along with Brittney Emslie and Marjorie-Ann Knight, founded Rhythm & Blues Cambridge in 2019 as a grassroots, nonprofit hub with a mission to bring together, empower, and inspire the Black community.
Rhythm & Blues Cambridge started as an in-person event before the pandemic and moved to an online gathering space. It has since grown to include various in-person events and programming. One such program is Black Girl Excellence, which was established to empower and uplift Black girls and youth in Cambridge and across Waterloo Region.
Organizers have partnered with other area groups, such as Kinbridge Community Association, to hold events for Black girls and youth to learn about everything from haircare to menstrual equity.
“Our hair is our crown. We celebrate who we are. We celebrate also what’s happening in our bodies,” said McLean, who is the Executive Director of Rhythm & Blues Cambridge. “We are trying to provide a space for education as well as just a safe space to talk about the different bullying that happens in the schools or outside the schools, the issues that you’ve had, and just overall affirming that the space that you’re in is for you, and really bringing that lens,” she added of Black Girl Excellence.
The program received financial support from Waterloo Region Community Foundation (WRCF)’s Racial Equity Fund in 2023 and again in 2024.
“The funding has done so much for us. We have been able to sit down and actually put the work in a developmental structure,” McLean said. “When you start as a grassroots organization, you have the idea, you have the concept, but now we have the programs in a proper setting where there are deliverables and measurements.”
The Racial Equity Fund, which supports meaningful, positive action that advances the work of organizations serving people in Waterloo Region who are Indigenous, Black, and people of colour, is further refined in order to also advance social infrastructure in Waterloo Region. WRCF has researched social infrastructure over the past few years and found a framework they support that was created by Gehl Studio, which focuses on three types of activated spaces: Hubs, Havens, and Hangouts.
Black Girl Excellence is a good example of a Haven: a space that provides safe environments for people with shared identities or backgrounds to come together, fostering close ties and a sense of belonging.
Said McLean: “We are not really turning away anyone. We accept your girl to come. We want you to come. We want you to be safe and feel comfortable.”
“I feel more connected to my community, and safer to be me.”
It’s all about providing a safe space.
"Allowing them to have the space to share their experiences and us being able to empower them, uplift them, speak to affirmations of who they are. We really try to do that in our programming,” McLean said. “We know these girls need the space from when they’re young to feel confident and to have the tools to uplift them in their journey. I’m hopeful that what we do can continue to give that space.”
For more information on Rhythm & Blues Cambridge and the Black Girl Excellence program, visit rhythmbluescambridge.com.
To learn more about WRCF’s Racial Equity Grants program, go to wrcf.ca/racialequity. If you are interested in learning more about social infrastructure, visit wrcf.ca/socialinfrastructure.