However, like many other not-for-profit organizations, CACD was severely impacted by COVID-19.

In this regard, we have seen an abrupt loss in revenue as a result of the cancellation of fundraising events, a steep dropoff of donations and contributions, reduction in individual giving, and earned income opportunities.

Besides, while grappling with the closure of our office at the Mississauga Valley Community Centre and cancellation of our programs and services, performances, workshops, gatherings, and events, we have experienced unprecedented human resource challenges with paid staff and volunteers.

With these challenges, we moved much of our work online and radically transformed our services to accommodate the requirements for physical distancing. We operated, by modifying our existing programs, developing new ones to meet online platforms; however, at a financial and human cost to the organization.

All be it, we remained vigilant and resilient. And on August 26, we were able to convene a number of our participants for a virtual graduation ceremony.

This session saw some members, community leaders, a teacher, parents, and special guests such as Coun. John Kovac, who brought greetings, a video message from Mayor Bonnie Crombie, and Mrs. Patricia Bebia Mawa, vice-president of Silvertrust Media and chair of the Reelworld Film Festival, bringing the keynote message.

Despite our youth being more educated and more socially connected online than the prior generation, they still face a multitude of challenges.

With all the nuances experienced in this pandemic, Black youth, in particular, are even more challenged with issues of systemic barriers, disenfranchisement, marginalization, racism and discrimination within the school system, sense of belonging and pride, finding a full-time job, experiencing social exclusion, and mental health issues.

In this regard, since the fall of 2019, CACD has been targeting Black youth with specialized programming, Black Youth Empowerment Initiative (BYEI), a project sponsored by the Department of Canadian Heritage.

In it, students in middle and high school are taught leadership, mentoring, digital literacy and Black Canadian history.

We offered virtual sessions in anti-Black Racism, Black Canadian History, addressing issues of diversity and inclusion and systemic barriers to employment, and workshops in movie production.

At the end of this BYEI project, participants have expressed a greater sense of pride and spoke of the importance of seeing their culture reflected in the program.

They agreed that they learned a lot in the program about digital literacy and valued the opportunity of expanded career aspiration.

They acknowledged that the program was meaningful and that the topical areas meet their needs. They spoke about the higher intrinsic motivation and feeling positive about interacting with their peers in the program and that they experienced a significant enhancement of their leadership skills attitude, particularly in areas of volunteering.

They agreed that the BYEI project was positive, responsive, and aided their academic skills development needs.

As alluded to earlier, this meaningful project came to an end and culminated in the virtual graduation ceremony on August 26 when they were further celebrated and validated for their hard work, persistence and perseverance.

The Mayor, in her message, congratulated CACD for its continued service to strengthen, empower and mentor the youth in our community.

She congratulated all the graduates but made personal mention of Tyric Thom, for his perfect attendance, most community service hours, and student participant of the year, Alexander Attah, for his leadership, commitment and dedication to the BYEI project.

Blaine Robinson was praised for being the most helpful and co-operative participant. The Mayor pointed out that life is full of opportunity: if you can dream it, you can be whoever you want to be.

Keynote speaker Mawa spoke most passionately and touchingly, moving all to quivers of excitement.

She emphasized three key points. Firstly, the participants are special and that they should believe in themselves and remember who they are. To make this clear, she referred to Simbas experience from the Lion King, as a story to inspire and motivate.

Secondly, she mentioned that nothing is impossible. In conclusion, she offered that in each of them, there is a seed of greatness. That there is no gain without pain and that there is no substitute for the boldness and excellence.

The executive director, Ron Cunningham, also added his salute to the graduates and added that despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a delight to be able to fulfil the BYEI project mandate and that the past few months have has been on an unforgettable journey for himself too.

He ended up quoting former U.S. president Barack Obama: "Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

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Citizens for the Advancement of Community Development hosts virtual graduation - mississauga.com