8 who spark change
Get to know the 2024 CBC Black Changemakers in Atlantic Canada
Artwork by Bria Miller for CBC
By Katie Rowe Creative Content Producer Mar. 1, 2025
It's hard to sum up the 2024 Black Changemakers in a few words. From bringing people together through the game of soccer to supporting aspiring entrepreneurs to sharing Black history through song.
All eight Changemakers are creating positive change in their communities — each in unique and powerful ways.
Over the past several months, we've been sharing their stories throughout the Atlantic region. Now we're compiling them together in one piece, with stunning artwork by Bria Miller. We invite you to read, watch and be inspired by their incredible contributions.
Henry Luyombya
After Henry Luyombya lost his father to HIV-related illness at 10 years old, his mother faced stigma and discrimination that forced her out of her teaching job in Uganda. She joined the HIV movement, training as a counsellor. Luyombya followed in his mother's footsteps, educating his peers and youth on HIV. He made such an impact that at age 23, he was invited to meet Nelson Mandela.
'I remember him telling me that 'Henry, I did not do this work alone.' HIs words are part of those that drive me every single day. I know that in this work, I cannot do it alone,' said Luyombya.
Luyombya works with PEERS Alliance as a clinical social worker on P.E.I., where he provides social support primarily to high-needs individuals from the 2SLGBTQ+ community. Luyombya also founded New African Canadians (NAC) to bring mental health support and settlement services for newcomers to Canada.
Scott Parsons
Charlottetown's Scott Parsons is a singer-songwriter who keeps the memories and stories of P.EI.'s Black history alive through his music.
Black people have been living on the island since the 1700s and Parsons felt it was important to write songs to educate people on their rich history and contributions to P.E.I. communities.
'I just developed a real interest in Prince Edward Island's Black history because it had largely gone unknown and it wasn't ever talked about very much. It certainly wasn't taught to any great degree in the schools,' said Parsons.
'Music's an easy way to get people to learn. The kids like the music so they kind of absorb the information much easier than if you're just trying to read to them out of a textbook.'
Khadeja Raven Anderson
Khadeja Raven Anderson is co-founder and co-president of Black Lives Matter N.L. and she helped lead the Black Lives Matter movement in the province. Anderson now runs Ravensong Consulting, which offers anti-racism and cross-cultural sensitivity training to organizations.
'The work that she does is not necessarily popular. She agitates, and she encourages by nudging people to think differently — and that is not easy,' said Dolores Mulling, vice-provost for equity, diversity and inclusion at Memorial University.
Anderson also hosts, plans and coordinates a Cultural Inclusion Camp focused on anti-racism literacy for young people.
'While we are always going to be experiencing the negative and the harms of racism, Black people deserve joy,' said Anderson.
Jeffery Imhanzenobe
Jeffery Imhanzenobe brings the Black and newcomer community together in Newfoundland and Labrador over a common passion: soccer.
Imhanzenobe grew up in Nigeria and moved to the province in 2015 to pursue his master's degree. In his free time, he still played soccer recreationally and started bringing groups from different countries together for matches.
In 2022, he co-founded the International Soccer Tournament in the province, which brings hundreds of people together to connect, share their cultures and play soccer.
'One thing we knew for sure was that soccer is a language, and once we are around the common passion, which is soccer, we speak the same language, ' said Imhanzenobe.
Seth Borden
Seth Borden may be the youngest 2024 Black Changemaker, but the first-year university student's passion for education is already having a big impact.
Borden graduated from Citadel High School in Halifax, N.S. in 2024 where he spent time from Grades 10 to 12 giving back. Every Monday, Borden visited École St. Catherine's Elementary School, providing one-on-one support for students in reading, math and science.
'I feel like just having someone that looks like them in the school system that they can trust or maybe that they can relate to, it's just easier for them then to come to school and want to learn more, ' said Borden.
Borden attended an elementary school where he was one of the only students of African Nova Scotian descent. He found it a struggle to fit in, and his experiences contributed to his desire to become a teacher.
Borden is now attending Dalhousie University, pursuing his goal of working in education.
Tia Upshaw
Tia Upshaw is an entrepreneur who is taking her experience in running a successful business to help other Black women do the same.
Upshaw is CEO and founder of BLK Women in Excellence, a not for profit organization that helps other Black women start their own businesses. Since she started the organization in 2020, she's provided one-on-one training to 137 Black women.
'You have Black businesses here that are able to have, you know, financial stability in their households. Women are being empowered, they're building confidence in their businesses,' said Upshaw.
'We're not just starting businesses no more — we're growing businesses.'
Felicity Brayley
As a young biracial child growing up in rural New Brunswick, Felicity Brayley said she never gave her skin colour a lot of thought. But as she grew a little older, she noticed some people treated her mom differently than her, just because her mom's skin was darker. 'That was really difficult,' said Brayley.
Brayley began learning more about Black history and incredible people like Harriet Tubman and Martin Luther King, Jr., and subjects not mentioned at school.
Now Brayley is a teacher and is passionate about sharing her heritage and knowledge with her students. Every year, no matter the age of her students, she teaches them about Black History. Throughout the month of February, she shares a mini-biography of a Black changemaker every day.
'I want to make more of an impact. For all of my kids to value Black History because it's so important,' she said. 'Black History is Canadian History.'
Adebayo Ogunleye
Adebayo Ogunleye knows firsthand what a big transition it is to move to Canada. Ogunleye grew up and worked in Nigeria until 2018 when he moved to New Brunswick.
'People land in Canada or New Brunswick, leave everything they have behind. Sometimes they sell everything they've worked for in their life,' said Ogunleye.
Now Oguleneye uses his personal time to help other newcomers transition to life in Canada. He sits on the boards of the Nigerian-Canadian Association of New Brunswick and Cohesia, a Canadian group that promotes social cohesion, and he is a mentor at Opportunities New Brunswick.
'One of the essences of life is to give back. It's to make positive change, positive impact in people's lives,' said Ogunleye.
Credits:
Visual storytellers: Aniekan Etuhube (N.B.), Emma Smith (N.S.), Zach Goudie (N.L.), Jane Roberston (P.E.I.), Aaron Adetuyi (P.E.I)
Illustrator: Bria Miller
Coordinating producer: Katie Jackson
Senior Manager: Victoria King
Being Black in Canada
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.
About the Author
Footer Links
My Account
Profile
CBC Gem
Newsletters
Connect with CBC
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
Mobile
RSS
Podcasts
Contact CBC
Submit Feedback
Help Centre
Audience Relations, CBC
P.O. Box 500 Station A
Toronto, ON
Canada, M5W 1E6
Toll-free (Canada only):
1-866-306-4636
TTY/Teletype writer:
1-866-220-6045
About CBC
Corporate Info
Sitemap
Reuse & Permission
Terms of Use
Privacy
Jobs
Our Unions
Independent Producers
Political Ads Registry
AdChoices
Services
Ombudsman
Public Appearances
Commercial Services
CBC Shop
Doing Business with Us
Renting Facilities
Accessibility
It is a priority for CBC to create a website that is accessible to all Canadians including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges.
Closed Captioning and Described Video is available for many CBC shows offered on CBC Gem.
About CBC Accessibility
Accessibility Feedback
© 2025 CBC/Radio-Canada. All rights reserved.
Visitez Radio-Canada.ca
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Toronto Star
4 hours ago
- Toronto Star
Gene Hackman's best movies, groovy Canadian folk rock and Josh Holloway's new ride: what we're obsessed with this week
TV: 'Duster' There's not much new under the blazing Phoenix sun in this soft-boiled, neo-noir action series from creators J.J. Abrams and LaToya Morgan (streaming on Crave), in which a gangster's gofer and the first Black female FBI agent uncover a conspiracy in the '70s American Southwest. Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson are two of the more obvious touchpoints, what with the incessant, crate-digger needle-drops, strutting camera moves and shocking bursts of ultraviolence. But the gleeful tone, wild cameos and ridiculously charismatic lead performances by Josh Holloway and Rachel Hilson make this a lot of fun to watch. —Doug Brod
Winnipeg Free Press
9 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Language in literary fiction debut masterfully mines love's complexities
Tarisai Ngangura gained prominence as a music journalist and photographer writing about Black experience in the context of global histories, collective memory and political movements. Her reporting has appeared in Vanity Fair, Lapham's Quarterly and Rolling Stone, among other publications. Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Ngangura completed her post-secondary journalism education at Toronto Metropolitan University. She divides her time between Toronto and Manhattan and has worked in Brazil, the United States and Canada. The Ones We Loved is Ngangura's literary fiction debut, a novel set in a rural landscape — a composite of towns in Zimbabwe and Brazil, according to the author — that depicts a love story between unnamed He and She who meet on a bus, each on the run from a devastating event from which there is no return. Hanah + Vinnie photo Tarisai Ngangura Back stories emerge as the novel shifts from past to present, and readers come to know the town of Waterfall, She's mother, She's two best friends Joy and Kuda as well as Kuda's mercurial and mysterious grandmother. Then there is the town of Spilling River and He's two best friends and chosen family, Kind Eyes and Blink and Miss. The long-ago loss of He's parents is an absence that permeates his psyche in shifting ways over time. 'As he got older, the memories grew dimmer and the stories larger, until they became what was told to him around a fire and before bed when the mind was open and accepting, and in times of quiet when memories fill the spaces where life has slowed,' Ngangura writes. The fields of Waterfall and Spilling River grow sorghum, maize, pumpkins and water-hungry sugarcane. The farmers, writes Ngangura, 'moved heavy, like their bodies weighed more than skin and nails and tears and blood and sweat and hair.' There are the landowners and their workers, and that sharp divide pierces the past, present and future of the novel's inhabitants. Colonial violence, survival, memory, fleeting joys and lasting grief inform every utterance and silence. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. This interplay between reported silence and speech is mesmerizing, instructive and often channelled through the elders: Mr. and Mrs. Clay, who lost their children but held onto love; Kuda's grandmother, who disappears repeatedly with no explanation upon return; and Gogo J., who refuses to marry because 'she needed honesty instead of smooth retellings.' A great achievement of the novel is the conveyance of a sensibility and epistemology that differs from the confines of the English language in which it is written. Ngangura's mother tongue is Shona, a Zimbabwean language characterized by oral storytelling, and its rhythms, cadences and repetitions seep into the novel's written English to create space for intergenerational wisdom, memory and grief. Another highlight, if one can call anything concerning a violent truth a highlight, is the skill with which Ngangura reveals the two shattering incidents from which She and He respectively are escaping. The novel is a true masterclass in trauma-informed storytelling and the art of literary fiction. Ngangura has spoken with admiration of Noor Naga's debut, If An Egyptian Cannot Speak English, calling it innovative and revelatory. The Ones We Loved attains a similar feat, an assured first novel that breaks ground by enriching the English language with other ways of knowing in order to tell a love story in all of its necessary complexity. Sara Harms is a Winnipeg editor.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
‘Elbows Up' anthology to include prominent patriots Margaret Atwood, Jay Baruchel, Atom Egoyan
TORONTO – An upcoming anthology to meet the recent swell in national pride will include essays by prominent Canadians including writers Margaret Atwood and Omar El Akkad, as well as filmmakers Atom Egoyan and Jay Baruchel. Its publisher McClelland & Stewart says 'Elbows Up!: Canadian Voices of Resilience and Resistance' will examine our relationship with the United States and ourselves. McClelland & Stewart publisher Stephanie Sinclair says she felt 'an urgent need' to create a time capsule that captures a pivotal period of history. She says it was inspired by the 1968 collection 'The New Romans: Candid Canadian Opinions of the U.S.' It will feature excerpts from 'The New Romans,' including one by Atwood — who will also supply a new piece — and works by late writers Margaret Laurence, Farley Mowat and Mordecai Richler. The book will be edited by CBC broadcaster Elamin Abdelmahmoud, and is set for release Oct. 14. New works will also come from writers Jeanne Beker, Niigaan Sinclair, Catherine Hernandez, Canisia Lubrin and Ann-Marie MacDonald. Another comes from Ken Dryden that was previously published in the Atlantic. 'This is a book that will be talked about for decades to come,' Sinclair said Thursday in a release. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 19, 2025.
