WIBCA

West Island Black Community Association, WIBCA

Education, Empowerment, and Entertainment

Our Conversation with members of the West Island Black Community Association (WIBCA)

In the Spring of 1982, the late Norma Husbands and her good friend Margaret Jolly, the two Founders of the West Island Black Community Association, were looking for some organized activities for their children. So they contacted the West Island YMCA and the city of Dollard des Ormeaux and asked for help. What spawned from that meeting, has flourished into a vibrant organization that has lasted for nearly 4 decades.

Clearly an organization like this has been met with challenges. However, WIBCA, as it is affectionately known, has stood the test of time. Trials such as, the usual funding issues that normally plague our community based organizations and surviving the dreaded Notice of Expropriation from the Provincial Ministry of Transport in 1992 did not deter them one bit.

This literally kicked them out of their home.

As we all know it, life has a way of closing one door to open an other and this, turned out to be a blessing in disguise. A building fund which was created earlier as a look to the future was used to purchase their current location in 1994. WIBCA officially opened their doors in 1996. This was monumental because during their Black History Month Kick-Off, WIBCA announced that it has paid-off their 25 year mortgage and now owns the building. A goal that the Association completed a few years earlier than scheduled.

FACT: WIBCA is one of the few Black Organizations in Canada that own their location.

My intention is not to reinvent the wheel, but to do what I can to position WIBCA for the future.

Kemba Mitchell

WIBCA and it’s Future

Since then, WIBCA has developed a number of programs for the community. From Tutoring and After School Homework programs for youth, Legal Clinics, Summer Camps and even a yearly Scholarship Program. WIBCA has truly grown into a cornerstone of the West Island Community servicing of members of the community, regardless of culture.

This is why Hear 2 Help You found it necessary to highlight newly appointed Chairperson Kemba Mitchell and Treasurer, Joan Lee.

We must continue building the necessary bridges between communities that our people so desperately need and what a wonderful way to do this.

Join us as we sit down to speak with these two energetic women as they share their love for their community, while initiating new ideas and directions, and above all, how they will be able to keep the dream alive.

For more information about WIBCA, please click here.

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