We noticed a growing trend between Black youth and mental health and understood this resulted from white supremacy racism. The services available in the city to assist youth mainly do so from a general perspective; however, we found that too many of our Black community members were falling through the cracks. We discovered that conversations regarding identity, future aspirations, money, trauma and countless more plagued the Black community because of our community’s disconnection from our past. The understanding we have of the unique history of the African Diaspora revealed that any sustainable approach to healing would require more specialized assistance, so instead of waiting for an existing organization to see what we saw, we decided to do something about it ourselves.

Data we compiled from secondary sources supported the wisdom we gained from first-hand experience, which linked positive mental health and self-acceptance with mindfulness practices and cultural awareness. This correlation confirmed a pervading reality; knowing our future is to know our past. Black people learning their history from an Afrocentric point of view provides missing context needed to understand their current reality, so they have the tools to create a prosperous future. Black people living in Toronto struggle to materialize their visions for the future because they have an estranged relationship with their past, and Catharsis was created to help change that reality. Our decision to dedicate ourselves to this mission set into motion a chain of events that resulted in us receiving funding from the Youth Opportunities Fund, a program of the Ontario Trillium Foundation, to address the issues we saw so clearly. We are tremendously grateful to be where we are today and look forward to where we are going.