By: Staff Writer
February 15, 2022
The Caribbean Canadian Association of Waterloo Region (CCAWR) just received $3m (CAD) to help with small business development for Caribbean nationals and minorities in the Waterloo region of Canada, all thanks to the Federal Economic Development (FEDDEV) Ontario.
Lannois Carroll-Woolery, President of the CCAWR, told Caribbean Magazine Plus that the association has made some important inroad for the Caribbean ex-patriates living in Canada and particularly the Waterloo region, where he said: “The association started as a cultural organization for immigrants from the Caribbean who wanted to increase their quality of life.
“In the last few years, we’ve kind of shifted from a cultural focus, even though we’re trying to bring that back, and looking after things that like Black Lives Matter, economic empowerment and the like. So, a lot of the work we’ve done in the last three years, has been taking our seat at the table for Black Lives Matter issues, number one; and number two, we were fortunate to be awarded a (CAD) $3m grant to build up black businesses in the in the Region of Waterloo from the FEDDEV Ontario.”
The region of Waterloo has over 535,000 people and some 20 percent or 107,000 of the total is listed as “visible minorities” and over 22 percent or 117,000 are listed as immigrants, with the three major cities of Waterloo, Kitchner and Cambridge comprising the core population centres.
Mr Carroll-Woolery, a Jamaican by birth living in Kitchner, also said: “Blacks in North America are, relatively speaking, disadvantaged financially for a number of reasons. It’s so difficult getting a job, people may not recognize your credentials and outright racism. So, when you’re trying to start a business, you hit all of these barriers and more. Nobody wants to sponsor your idea and partner with you. So, all of these things mean that for blacks in Canada, starting and maintaining a business is extremely difficult. So the $3m grant was given to us to try and grow black businesses in this area of the country.”
This was a way for the FEDDEV Ontario to give back to black and disadvantaged communities in the Waterloo region after all of the Black Lives Matter protests across the country, where the CCAWR can certainly use the money to help their growing membership and people immigrating to the region.
Moving to Canada and assimilating to the culture is going to be a “personal choice” based on the quality of life the person is accustomed to. “If you have a nice job in the Caribbean and you value the sun, sand and sea and enjoy the comfort of being home, immigrating to Canada may not be for you because your quality of life may deteriorate. But if you are someone who has little or next to nothing and no prospects in your home country, then Canada may be for you. It is all a personal choice on how you view your quality of life,” Mr Carroll-Woolery said.
Taking into consideration the type of adjustments Caribbean people would have to make to immigrate to Canada, the CCAWR tries to help people where possible to fitting in and being a part of a family once you touch down in Canada, but admits that due to financial and organisational constraints there is not much of that happening with the organisation now in terms of providing a Welcome Wagon of sorts. Mr Carroll-Woolery also said: “Anything that we do in that regard is nothing structured or organized. It’s very ad hoc, very casual. We have no formal programmes but people do reach out to us, but we don’t have the capacity to provide for a Welcome Wagon, we don’t have the capacity for that, because our Welcome Wagon would wouldn’t be in the budget. I would love to do it.”
The closest thing the CCAWR got to a Welcome Wagon event was a Black History month concert where they had a few local Caribbean performing artists provide entertainment earlier in February. It was properly attended by Canadians of all colours and creeds, but also served as a time for bring more people into the association. But prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, events like the one held in the first week in February were frequently held.
Mr Carroll-Woolery explained where most of the event attendees came from and how he builds the network of the CCAWR, “There’s in Kitchener, the Waterloo Multicultural Centre and we are very affiliated with them, because we are a cultural association. We do quite a few fun things together.”
He continued, “It would be at the Multicultural Centre that would get the inquiries, because they have a very structured programme for intake for newcomers including translation services, legal services at low cost, those kinds of things.”
“People would say, I’m from the Caribbean and I’m looking to make connections here and then so that the Multicultural Centre would send us an email and then we would connect with the person.”