Nursing professor wants to pay it forward
Nursing professor wants to give teens access to the kind of mentorship she received
It was through a mentorship program for Black youth in Toronto that Bukola Salami first decided to become a nurse.
Now a nursing professor, Salami wants to give Black youth in Edmonton the same kind of inspiration and support she received by pairing teens with Black academics at the University of Alberta.
“There were people that were achieving in different fields, and if they could achieve and be Black, I could achieve,” she said.
The Black Youth Mentorship Program, new this fall, is meant to empower youth socially and economically by offering up mentors and role models, and teaches youth academic skills like conducting literature reviews and writing scholarly papers. It aims to increase the teens' leadership skills and post-secondary entry and completion rates, feel a sense of belonging and community, and foster a positive cultural identity.
Research shows Black youth are more successful when they're taught and mentored by people of the same ethnic background, Salami said. Exposing the teens to Black academics, university students and professionals, and other diverse mentors, helps them think they can succeed too.
“When you take away some of the racist experience ... within the school system, and you also provide them with positive role models, and you also put them with peers ... and through your verbal and non-verbal cues, they see that you believe in them and they blossom.”
Salami said the first youth to go through the program were really engaged in building their networks and aiming high, knowing that if another Black person could get there, they can too.
They were also really interested in learning about Black history in Alberta — so much so, they asked a presenter to come back for a second day because they had so many questions.
Thirty-three high school students ages 16 to 19 completed the program meeting Saturdays over 13 weeks this fall, in either a mentorship or research stream. They learned how to choose a career and finance a university education, all while discussing how to deal with discrimination and systemic racism in school and the workplace.
Youth were divided into groups depending on research interest, including: organizational racism; how engineering can improve lives around the world; mental health of Black people in Canada; and sickle cell disease, which is common within Black communities.
Nonso Morah, a 17-year-old student at Spruce Grove Composite High School, said the experience was “eye-opening” and helped her see possibilities for her future.
“It was a really good opportunity. I had the chance to network and meet people I probably wouldn't have met otherwise ... to be introduced to academia and what it takes to be successful and work hard.”
Morah worked in a political science research group and helped to expand the project, studying children's political identities and what being an Albertan means to them in her school division.
She realized she wants to study in a similar field: international relations.
Coming from a predominantly white neighbourhood and school, she enjoyed meeting other ambitious Black youth as well as the adults.
“It was really nice to see adults who were in our positions who would go through the same struggles and are going through the struggles we may face that are very different than the mainstream group of people who are in those roles.”
Morah also enjoyed learning about Black history in Alberta and has been speaking with her school division about modernizing education and making it more diverse.
The program recently received funding to run again next summer.
There were people that were achieving in different fields, and if they could achieve and be Black, I could achieve.