Greetings, how have you been, long time, I haven't seen you since........the familiar words of friends who haven't spoken in a while and we feel this way about you. Whether we meet you at one of our live shows back in the days (Big Up El Mocambo) or through community building or you just plain stumbled upon our website (GREAT), we are truly thrilled that you have taken the time to look around the site and read our blog. We hope you were able to get an idea of who we are, what we do and what we stand for, if not, let me sum it up in one simple word, LOVE. We stand for LOVE of our community and communities across the globe, the LOVE of our young people, especially those mislabeled and misunderstood. We stand for the LOVE and belief that we can collectively solve the challenges  facing us, within the space of LOVE, TOGETHERNESS and PEACE. This may sound a bit well... corny, but having learned from many elders and re-membering knowledge left to us by our ancestors, we have come to realize that LOVE is the strongest force in the UNIVERSE. LOVE can heal humanity and the multi- layered connections that exist between us and Mother Earth. We don't claim to have all the answers, nor can we solve all the problems, but we WILL NOT stand by and do nothing. What we are doing is contributing one path to the variety of pathways that exist on the road towards a more meaningful existence. We are not in a box, we are constantly creating; youth projects, events, gatherings to celebrate the seasons, global learning adventures, workshops, you name it. Although we are constantly co-creating with others in the community the one theme that strings it's way through all the initiatives seeks to answer the questions; How can our lives be more meaningful? How can we re-connect with one another on a deeper level and fulfill our life's purpose? These are not easy questions but the answers are truly inspiring and what continually motivates us to keep pushing forward piece by peace...
POR AMOR

So it's February and its that time again for da da da daaaaaa AFRICAN HISTORY Month, the time of the year when we all take that ONE month to recognize people of African Descent and their accomplishments..do I sound a bit jaded, well I think its great that African peoples have time dedicated to their history and continued accomplishments, but the jaded part comes from African History and Canadian African History that has contributed to the greatness of Canada not being part of the Ministry of Educations mandate to teach throughout the year, especially when our African boys are dropping out at the rate of 58%, the last time I checked. That being said and all politics aside I was truly inspired and humbled to be part of Ursula Franklin Academy Black History Event, on Thursday Feb 9th 2012. I was there representing the Ontario Black History Society who I worked with many summer's ago.(.see never burn any bridges as my mama would say) and I was pleased to see that the event was organized by the youth of the school for ALL students. The youth decided to organize this event because every year they have a speaker in the morning but information goes in one ear and out the other and is generally not engaging to the youth, so they decided to have workshops with different themes that students would attend for the first part of the day. There were a variety of topics and I saw some old friends..yes yes. My workshop was centered around African Principals and pre-slavery ancestors entitled  "Every Lion has a Story" based on the Akan quote;

                                 " Until lions have their historians tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunters"

It was a short 45 minutes so it was hard to really get into any in-depth discussions but we what we were able to do was share stories of African Ancestors, play a drama game based on African Principals and connect about youth manifesting their divine purpose as a legacy to ALL our African Ancestors who made self- discovery a way of life not a weekend retreat. I want to document this in print how INSPIRED, MOTIVATED, IMPRESSED and RE-ENERGIZED I was by these youth from our city.The event was very well organized, (I could tell as I have been organizing events since ..well a long time) the youth organizers were helpful, respectful and on-point. I was taken care of, water was even  delivered to my room before each of my three sessions, that's a first for me and I have been doing workshops for almost ten years now, darn I'm getting old.  If you are one of those youth and you are reading this now, thanks for checking out the site (and they say teenagers don't listen) but most important, thank you for taking leadership, thank you for filling a need in the community, thank you for defying stereotypes about our youth, thanks for allowing the lions to have their historians and medasi pa for being a shining light for the future of our city and really the world......
Tanika 
POR AMOR 

So it seems as though there is this common energy out there with many of the people I know and respect who are amazing, forward thinking, boundary breaking, bringing back the ancestral knowledge community builders- we are all emotionally and mentally tired of playing the grant game, of "prove to us that your worthy". Many of my fellow educators and builders including myself are trying to figure of what is the healthy, holistic means to accomplish our ideals and visions. Its seems social enterprise is the way to go, where over 50% of our revenue is coming from the "amazing" business idea that is crying to be formulated in 2012. The rational is this,  visions for community shouldn't live or die because a funder says so or because a political party comes in that "na make no sense" (as my granny says) regarding  views on healthy communities. Rather community visions should be based on there meaningfulness and relevance to the communities they are serving. I'm sure even the funders would agree ( if you do and you think I'm brillant, please mail all cheques to) ....all jokes aside. As the title of a book I need to buy say's "The Revolution will not be Funded" and why would it- that would be a pretty controlled, playground revolution,  I'm left still wondering how my visions are going to be funded and my friends.  As I am writing this , the wheels have been put into motion (inspired during a mid day vacuuming at that !) to bringing some sharp, dedicated, motivated and might I say quite cute, women together ,to open up to what the universe may have in store for us, that would allow us all to collectively fund our separate but amazingly dope (do we still use dope in 2012) community initiatives. My thoughts are, if the people I'm building with can not  build upon business ideas to generate that paper currency we all need to do thing RIGHT, then I'm not sure who can, and then I'm not sure exactly what I'm gonna do next, and then I'm not---- ohhh the journey to manifest one's dream, maybe I should get a "real" job ....nahhhhhhhhhhhh that would be, de-motivating, time stealing, have to beg to leave early because my kid is sick , all around dream sucking ,too easy -cuz im blessed option (no offense to my friends who have jobs , I'm speaking to the people out there who hate their jobs.... anyhow something will come through, it has to ,it always does.........right universe!  RIGHT (who said that)

Tanika Riley