2025 Indigenous & Black Youth Fund Projects

Dear Community,

Black Youth Initiative is thrilled to share that we’ve wrapped up our fourth cycle of the Indigenous and Black Youth Community Action Grant! We’re grateful for the trust and care that we continue to receive from our communities and funders who actively support our work. We are excited to share that we’ve funded 20 Indigenous and Black youth-led projects across British Columbia through our 2025 cycle. These funds continue to support Indigenous and Black youth who are creating change in their communities through storytelling, celebrating their cultures, creativity, space for grief, and advocacy to sustain joy for their communities. Read below to learn more about the projects!

Blue Breeze

Blue Breeze is a feature-length narrative rooted in the lived experience of a queer Haitian immigrant. It follows Amara, a young Haitian woman seeking asylum in Canada, who falls in love with another woman while navigating the trauma of migration, cultural silence, and the uncertainty of immigration status. It’s about how Black, queer, displaced people find ways to survive through tenderness, resilience, and chosen love.

Disability Justice Based Environmental Scan

The Disability Justice Network of British Columbia (DJNBC) is a Black led organization of disabled youth and young people interested in addressing ableism in British Columbia. They are newly formed and are conducting an environmental scan of existing data and resources that exist for disabled people and Black disabled people across BC. The Environmental Scan would help formulate their larger strategic plan, ahead of their official organizational launch in September of 2025. It will also help with assessing gaps in race based and accessibility based work across municipalities here that we can fill with our work going forward.

Migrant Support Fund

To support a migrant youth.

The Somali Link Up Youth Collective

The Somali Link Up is a grassroots initiative led by Somali and Black youth organizing in Surrey and Vancouver, B.C. Born from the desire to build intentional spaces for collective joy, cultural connection, and creativity, this local chapter is part of a larger movement that began across Canada to amplify Somali voices and gather our community beyond survival. In cities like Vancouver, where Black and migrant communities often remain dispersed and underrepresented, this work and space has become so meaningful to the community. With the funds, they will deepen their capacity to organize gatherings that are accessible, youth-led, and rooted in joy.

Grandmothers Art Circle

The Grandmothers’ Art Circle is a two-part community wellness project designed to support Somali elders, specifically grandmothers, through culturally relevant art-based programming and social connection. Somali grandmothers play vital roles as caregivers, culture keepers, and sources of strength. However, they often have limited access to wellness or creative programs that center their experiences. This project offers space for connection, self-expression, and rest in a familiar and welcoming environment. This project supports elder wellness, strengthens community connection, and promotes cultural affirmation. It also creates space for Somali youth and elders to build relationships through shared care and creativity.

BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour) Youth and Young Adults Storytelling and Mentorship

A monthly social event program that would provide a space where Black, Indigenous, and People of colour can share their experiences, challenges and memories in the form of storytelling. The project is centered around unity and freely embracing one’s heritage and culture. The mentorship aspect of the program will focus on bringing in experienced individuals, such as elders, to provide guidance and support to youth and young adults, who struggle with maintaining and strengthening their sense of inclusion as they receive guidance from someone who can relate to their journey on a deeper level.

Disordered

Disordered is a psychological dramatic short film that follows a troubled, Black teen who is struggling with an eating disorder and confronts the embodiment of her childhood trauma, which pushes her on a path to healing. The film takes us on a journey of seeing the main character Jess's inner negative thoughts manifest outside of herself in the form of a Shadow figure. This film honors the empowerment and messy frustration surrounding body image while demonstrating the importance of healing your inner child who wasn’t accepted by peers and society. Disordered also showcases a powerful montage of dance and instrumental music accompanied by a spoken word poem about the journey of self acceptance.

2025 Moosehide Tanning Campaign in Shared Tse'Khene Territory

This project brings together Elders, youth, and community members from the three Tsek’ene communities—Kwadacha, Tsay Keh Dene, and McLeod Lake—as well as Indigenous community members living in so-called “Vancouver” for a two-week moosehide tanning camp on shared Tsek’ene territory in August 2025, with additional invitations extended to surrounding Nations. The camp will center Indigenous solidarity and community building, facilitate intergenerational knowledge transfer through mentorship between Elders and youth, and support the preservation of cultural practices by building capacity for future camps to be led by Tsek’ene youth. Rooted in land-based learning and collective care, the camp will integrate the Tsek’ene language and its three dialects into daily activities, creating a collaborative environment where cultural knowledge can be lived and shared. The project also centers queer Tsek’ene youth and artists, offering a healing space that affirms their presence and relationships within the community. Through this work, the camp aims to strengthen cross-community ties between urban and remote Indigenous communities, uphold Tsek’ene feminist and queer values, and sustain moosehide tanning as a vital, Tsek’ene cultural practice for future generations.

Flavours of Home - A Community Kitchen Project

Flavours of Home is a project aiming to bring immigrant families to cook, share and celebrate traditional food. This initiative creates a space where parents, youth and children can connect through the preparation of cultural dishes, fostering intergenerational bonding and cultural pride. In the immigrant communities from South Sudan, busy work schedules with long shifts and multiple jobs often limit opportunities for families to engage in meaningful cultural practices together. Food is a powerful connector, this project uses it as a tool to bridge generational gaps and cultural heritage. Lack of resources to invest in activities outside of household expenses and school expenses stop parents from initiating this activity.

Black Out Open Sessions

Black Out Open Sessions will host open sessions for queer and trans Black youth to gather, express themselves, and connect through the culture of Ballroom. Inspired by the underground New York Ballroom Scene—created in the 1960s by Black and Latinx trans and queer communities in response to exclusion from mainstream drag spaces— these sessions honour that legacy and center Black voices. Structured as both workshops and community gatherings, participants can learn and practice Ballroom categories—like vogue, runway, face, and realness—in an intergenerational, supportive environment. These sessions promote leadership, foster belonging, and provide mentorship from seasoned members of the scene. The project recognizes the systemic barriers queer Black youth face—discrimination, isolation, and lack of access to affirming spaces. This project creates a culturally safe, youth-led environment rooted in care, creativity, and community.

Celebration of Excellence and Achievement for Students of African Descent

Black Grad is a special annual celebration that honours the academic success of students of African and Caribbean descent in a vibrant, culturally affirming space. This initiative creates a dedicated space to centre Black joy, family, and excellence, in whichever way ‘excellence’ means for the individual. It was launched in 2023 out of the need to recognize and uplift Black students in a province where they are often underrepresented and in some cases, the only Black student or among a few in their grade or school. It celebrates Black students from across British Columbia who are transitioning from middle school to high school, graduating from high school, or completing their post-secondary education. Black Grad fosters a sense of belonging by connecting students across schools and regions, building a supportive network that extends beyond the event. It is a joyful affirmation that Black students' successes matter and deserve to be celebrated.

Malaika Girls Project

This is a project by a group of Black Girls who attended, or still attend secondary school in Surrey. The name Malaika means Angel, a name fitting for what they stand for despite how they may be labelled as immigrant young girls. The group aims to empower African girls to unite for greater good; through mental health awareness, financial literacy programs, and learning entrepreneurship. It also aims to give girls access to First AID courses, Food Safe, and working closely with WorkSafe BC to support the individuals into getting more courses/ entering the job market; as well as providing the girls with an opportunity to build strong resumes. They also have a goal for a focused community workshop that will support African parents and the girls; mainly geared towards tackling the challenges that families face with integration into Canadian society; particularly making sure there’s an alignment between the youth and the parents.

Black Createives Retreat - Collective Visioning for a Liberatory Future

The Black Creatives Retreat: Collective Visioning for a Liberatory Future is a multi-day gathering designed to bring together Black artists, storytellers, and changemakers across disciplines to build community, dream collectively, and co-create the conditions for a liberated future. It will take place in Squamish British Columbia in September 2025. This retreat offers a rare, intentional space for Black creatives to slow down, reconnect, and collaborate outside of the pressures of industry gatekeeping. Through facilitated visioning workshops, storytelling circles, wellness sessions, and skill-building activities, participants will explore themes of collective care, cultural memory, and creative sovereignty. It serves not only as a celebration of creativity but as an invitation to imagine alternative futures grounded in Black joy, solidarity, and resourcefulness. They are especially committed to centering underrepresented voices within the Black diaspora, including Muslim, disabled, and refugee creatives, whose stories and innovations are vital to the cultural and political fabric of communities. By investing in collective visioning and creative experimentation, the Black Creatives Retreat nurtures the conditions necessary for cultural healing, ecosystem building, and liberatory futures led by Black imagination.

From Horn to Home

This project will host a community-rooted art exhibition that is an offering of memory and resilience from young artists of East African and broader Black diasporic descent. Youth-led and deeply personal, this exhibition invites audiences into an intergenerational dialogue on the meaning of home, as imagined and reimagined by creatives aged 16 to 30. It holds space for reflections on migration, forced displacement, cultural memory, and the pursuit of belonging in a world shaped by colonization and systemic uprooting. Focusing on the Horn of Africa Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Sudan this project is a tribute to the richness, strength, and survival of communities impacted by war, colonial violence, and migration. These homelands carry stories both painful and proud. Many who now reside in the Lower Mainland carry their homes with them in language, rhythm,  taste, and memory.  Youth participants will contribute original artwork, short films, photography, and personal objects that reflect their lived experiences and connections to home. These deeply intimate pieces serve not only as expressions of identity, but also as testaments to ancestral resilience, cultural continuity, and diasporic creativity.

Magic Water

Magic Water is a project that offers cold plunge sessions for Black youth and community members. Sessions will be guided by a Black facilitator and is centered around nervous system relief, regulation, and connection. It is rooted in something I’ve felt deeply: racism lives in our bodies. Magic Water is about making space for Black folks to feel good in their bodies as racism lives in the body. It shows up as long-term stress, anxiety, and tension that many of Black people carry without even realizing and don’t have access to spaces where they can just breathe, rest, and come back to themselves — especially in ways that feel culturally safe and grounded.

Grief and Solidarity Series

A series of two events that hold space to honor our collective grief, process our losses, and support each other in our world with multiple forms of violence. To grieve is to be alive, to be human, and because it is a deeply human experience, it benefits from being ritualized and having space held for it. The event invites folks to gather in the commons of the heart and grieve together. It’s all about connection and presence—holding space for the full, complex experience of what it means to be alive and grieve in our bodies. Folks will share stories in circles, gather in community outdoors, hold vigil in public parks, offering up space and embodied practices that allow folks to connect through their sorrows. The event will include 1) music, song and poetry readings that speak to the grieving heart, 2) a visual creation to externalize and collectivize our grief, and 3) A nature grief/sense walk to ground ourselves, letting nature hold on to our weight.

Voices of Resilience: Immigrant Success Stories in BC

This project is a 5-episode video podcast series focused on inspiring and uplifting the stories of immigrants living in British Columbia. Titled Voices of Resilience, the series will showcase personal journeys of adaptation, achievement, and community contribution from diverse immigrant voices, highlighting the challenges and triumphs that often go unheard.It is a partnership with the U-Turn Talk Show, a platform committed to social impact storytelling, to produce and share this podcast across digital platforms. Each 30-minute episode will feature a different guest—ranging from entrepreneurs and community organizers to creatives and professionals—sharing not only their success but the resilience, cultural identity, and support systems that have shaped their journeys. The goal is to celebrate immigrant experiences while also offering relatable stories and insights that can uplift and motivate others, especially newcomers facing similar challenges. Through honest and hopeful conversations, Voices of Resilience will foster belonging and solidarity in BC’s richly diverse communities.

Students of Caribbean and African Ancestry- Black History Month Initiative

SOCA is a student-led association at SFU composed of Black Students with the foundational pillars of advocacy, community and inclusivity. The Black History Month Initiative will be focused on empowering the Black community on campus and the Vancouver community at large. The project will 1) host Black youth currently in Highschool , on SFU Burnaby Campus during Black History Month to allow them to hear from Black Industry professionals, 2) host a Professional Development Events for members of the community currently pursuing post-secondary education through facilitating networking events by partnering with organizations they have built strong relationships with, and 3) plan an advocacy month (September) where they prioritize advocacy on causes currently affecting various groups around the world such as Congo, Sudan, Palestine with a focus on highlighting SOCA’s values around decolonisation and justice for all oppressed persons.

Cimilo iyo Caafimad

Cimilo iyo Caafimaad is a proposed diaspora-led, community-rooted initiative focused on understanding and addressing the health impacts of climate change in Somalia through grassroots research, advocacy, and storytelling. Climate change is already deepening health inequities in Somalia, yet the voices of those most impacted are often excluded from the conversation. This project will serve as a bridge between communities that centres lived experience. The project will host a pilot workshop in Surrey, BC, created in collaboration with the Somali Community Network. The workshop will teach the basics of community organising and climate-health advocacy to Somali and other interested youth. This is a part of a longer-term goal to create more opportunities for young Somali people and other youth to be leaders in climate and health justice. It also creates space to learn from Indigenous knowledge systems and deepen intercommunal connections, especially through storytelling and shared advocacy.

Palestinian Youth Organizing

We allocated funding to support 2 Palestinian youth groups in their organizing efforts.