Racial justice advocate honoured
Charmaine Magumbe presented with 2017 YMCA Peace Medal
Charmaine Magumbe was the recipient of Peterborough’s 2017 YMCA Peace Medal during a ceremony Friday morning at the Balsillie Family YMCA on Aylmer Street in Peterborough.
Magumbe is an advocate for racial justice who has organized many peace rallies, including the Black Lives Matter rallies in Peterborough.
She was also a key organizer in the Solidarity Weekend in September, which saw hundreds of peace advocates gather in Confederation Square in response to a planned anti-immigration rally.
Magumbe is the chairwoman of the Community Race Relations Committee.
The mother of five also contributes opinion pieces to The Examiner and she’s a member of St. John’s Anglican Church in Peterborough.
In 2016 she organized A Courageous Conversation, where a panel of people of colour spoke to a packed house in the auditorium of the Peterborough Public Library about racism in the city.
Magumbe spoke at a ceremony at the YMCA on Friday, which was attended by family, friends and well-wishers. She compared peace work to making a quilt.
“When you’re creating a quilt, sometimes you use pieces of material – and sometimes the pieces you use are ones that have been rejected,” she said.
“But they can still be used – quilts use different sizes and different colours. And depending on the quilt, it needs community effort to put it together to make one big, beautiful piece. And that’s what peace is all about.”
Past recipients of Peterborough’s 2017 YMCA Peace Medal include Maryam Monsef, Gord and Heather Rodin, Janet McCue, Margaret Slavin, Goodith Heeney, Jessica Melnik, Jean Koning and Micky Renders.
NOTE: Toronto activist and CFRB radio show host Desmond Cole will be the guest speaker at the YMCA Peace Week Speak for Peace event on Saturday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Balsillie Family YMCA. The event is free to attend.