Niagara group aims to bridge the gap in mental health services for young Black men

Since 2019, Future Black Female (FBF) has been helping young Black women and girls gain access to mental health services, financial literacy and career strategies.

Focusing on the ages of 16 to 22, FBF aims to help that demographic through transitional moments like graduating from high school, leaving home and getting a first job.

Now, the non-profit is looking to expand that mission to support young Black men and boys through a project called Ujamaa, which Bell said means "brotherhood," in Swahili.

Ujamaa is also used as a word for extended family and a principle of Kwanzaa that means building community through shared social wealth.

FBF's community engagement worker, Leon Bell, said the program came together out of a need for services to get over the stigma of seeking professional help.

"A lot of young Black men and boys in Canada may have Caribbean or African roots," said Bell.

"In their household, it may not be something that is normally addressed or that they feel is important."

He said the program aims to overcome cultural barriers and added services like this one are essential at that age.

"There's a lot of trauma in the community … If this goes unaddressed, then it just could spiral into other things like incarceration or [homelessness.]"

FBF was started by Tapo Chimbganda who was informed by her own experience as a 21-year-old Black immigrant in Canada.

"If I had the community, if I had the supports, I probably wouldn't have experienced so much trauma, so much challenges, so much barriers," she said. 

Chimbganda has a PhD in language, culture and teaching and a master's degree in psychotherapy and said she's worked in different communities in the Niagara region.

"I kept coming across a similar story, especially for Black women and other women of colour, the social isolation, the not knowing like simple things and why financial literacy is so important to us," she said.

That's why she built FBF on three pillars: mental health, financial literacy and education and career strategies.