African Canadians & Biracial Individuals

I learned a lot about the African background and their history as slaves in this presentation. I also learned that they celebrate certain holidays such as Kwanzaa, Black History Month, Caribana and North Buxton Homecoming. They explained in the presentation that Caribana is basically a festival to celebrate the religion of the Rastafarian people. This religion is based on living in happiness, freedom and peace. In the presentation, they showed us a youtube clip of what Caribana is like in Toronto and it actually made me want to go and check it out! Other religions that the African people practice are Christianity and Islam. These people feel very strongly about church and their religion. They also feel strongly about family bonding and connecting with one another.

I could use this information in my future career as a child counselor because I have learned a little more about who these people are. I learned that they really like to express themselves when it comes to music, art and dance. By becoming familiar with the kind of music and art that these people use, I could try to relate with these children by using activities to help them express themselves. This presentation gave me a background understanding of African Canadians but I believe that I would definitely do more further research for a better understanding if I was to work with a African client.
I found the presentation on Biracial Canadians to be very informative when it comes to their feelings and how to work with them. I really enjoyed the part where it explained how to work with these children and what kind of activities I could use because these could definitely be useful if I was to work with a biracial client in the future. I thought that learning about the important things to remember when working with these kinds of clients was very important. A couple of statements that I found to be useful would be to work with the parents of these children, having background knowledge of these children and being aware of their feelings.
Overall, I think that the presentations that we watched last week were very useful!