Black Health, Collective Care: Learning from Afrocentric Approaches

February is Black History Month in Canada. We join Canadian Heritage in honouring Black excellence in Canada and celebrating the remarkable contributions that Black Canadians make to Canadian society every day.

We’ve known for a long time that Black people in Canada don’t receive equitable health care, and as a result have worse health outcomes. Systemic racism in the health system—which doesn’t imply that individual health care providers are racist, but that the system as a whole is tilted against Black people, including Black health care providers—is a complex problem and one that needs to be tackled from many angles.

A few years ago, TAIBU Community Health Centre in Toronto considered what it would look like to take a more Afrocentric approach to solving this problem. Grounded in ubuntu (a concept that translates roughly as “I am because we are”) and the Nguzu Saba (seven principles of African heritage that focus on building and sustaining strong communities), TAIBU’s aim is to end systemic anti-Black racism and promote and preserve Black health.

As so often happens with culturally inclusive efforts, their approach makes health care better for everyone. “Indeed,” they note, “it is difficult to imagine how a person or community can be healthy in the absence of a sense of purpose, belonging and connection, collective work, self-determination, dignity, justice or the joy that comes from being immersed in the rich inheritances of one’s ancestry and culture.”

Read more about TAIBU’s approach here