The Canadian Council for Youth Prosperity (CCYP) is proud to announce the launch of Black Seed, a new program to boost supports for Black youth in the Canadian workforce.
Black Seed works with Black-led, Black-focused and Black-serving (B3) organizations with culturally informed and culturally safe standards of practice for working with Black youth and addressing their unique needs.
“With Black Seed, we are thrilled to be meeting Black Canadian youth where they are with highly impactful, original solutions to make tangible changes to how our young people navigate the workforce,” says Christopher Duff, Executive Director of the Canadian Council for Youth Prosperity.
The unemployment rate of Black youth is nearly double that of Canadian youth overall (Canada Census, 2021). During their job search and career planning, Black youth face systemic racism and often find themselves receiving assistance from organizations ill-equipped to provide the support they need to thrive in the workforce.
Grounded in research, Black Seed enlists the expertise of Black-led organizations to help others serving Black youth. It provides assistance through a new, easily accessible online toolkit – a comprehensive roadmap to build capacity for professionals to better support Black youth.
The Black Seed program also works to identify challenges B3 organizations face in having conversations with youth about racism at work. Through the program, CCYP works with B3 organizations to find solutions to help Black youth and identify the coaching needed to effect change.
“We are intentional about ensuring that B3s can scale up, particularly as we contend with how challenging the pandemic has been for Canada’s Black communities,” says Duff. “We are equally grateful to our program partners, as well as our own team for their research, diligence, collaboration and, most of all, their passion, to bring us to this important moment for Black Canadian youth to break the cycle of systemic challenges, and deliver better employment outcomes, which will have meaningful impacts for Canada overall.”
Black Seed is a partnership with the Network for the Advancement of Black Communities (NABC) and CEE Centre for Young Black Professionals.
