Program supporting Black businesses in Northern Ont. receives federal funding

The Northern Ontario Black Economic Empowerment Program in Sudbury received $389,197 through FedNor.

A Sudbury-based program that supports Black entrepreneurs and businesses across northern Ontario received a federal funding boost Wednesday.

The Northern Ontario Black Economic Empowerment Program received $389,197 through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario (FedNor).

“It’s really important work for us to help young entrepreneurs in our community and young black entrepreneurs. We know that they face specific obstacles,” said Sudbury MP Viviane Lapointe.

“This is really meant to give them that boost that they need. They contribute so much to our community, small business entrepreneurs and create jobs in our community.”

The program is run by the Afro-Heritage Association of Sudbury.

“We’ve been able to give our entrepreneurs a cultural context on our business in Canada,” said Charles Chamairi Nyabeze, the program’s executive director.

Helped more than 120 businesses

“Many of our entrepreneurs are coming from other countries where there’s a different economy, so giving them a good heads up on what to expect in the economy has been really useful for them.”

Established in 2022, the program has helped more than 120 businesses open, scale up or modernize and created four full-time jobs.

Nyabeze said the program was created believing economic empowerment could be one solution to systemic racism.

“We really felt strongly that building the wealth base in Black people is one way for us to avoid things like discrimination, which is really sometimes economic in nature,” he said.

“Also, we realized that a lot of the Black people coming into Canada, into northern Ontario, are just ending up doing entry-level jobs, so want to give them something more to aspire for.”

Nyabeze said the FedNor funding will be a huge help.

“The future is really Black people contributing more to the economy of northern Ontario, making northern Ontario the kind of community that we all envision it to be a better community,” he said.

“A more resilient northern Ontario where we have more localized supply chains. We’ll have more local people doing work to service the local economies.”

Omobolanle Abajingin, the founder of Zena Café, a coffee shop at Laurentian University, moved here from Nigeria in 2018.

Abajingin is becoming known in the community by selling homemade, handcrafted flavoured popcorn at the Farmers Market for three years.

She opened the doors to the café almost a year ago and said the program provided her with key support.

“Not just the emotional support being, you know, being a Black person trying to put your feet down in the community,” Abajingin said.

“People were there to help with the business plan, get your books right, do your taxes, write all that, they would have seminars, workshops.”

She is currently trying to get her flavoured popcorn -- Zena’s Gourmet Popcorn -- in retail stores.

She would also like to open a second café.