ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the development and implementation of a community-based initiative that highlights voices of African mothers fighting for solutions to improve the lives of their families and communities. Alarming rates of primarily male youth violence among Somali Canadians have exacerbated community trauma and fragmentation. As racist policies and procedures remain entrenched in Canadian institutions, distressing physical and mental health trends are rising and impacting wider segments of the African Canadian populace. African Canadian leaders representing various sectors were brought together to develop a “Black Health Network” with the requisite resources and strategies to improve the health outcomes of African Canadian communities in Ontario. Representing 12% of the student body, 48% of all expulsions in the Toronto student population involve African Canadian students. The undermining settlement barriers and racism Somali Canadians experience have less to do with their individual characteristics or their embodiment of a national “Somali” consciousness.
