African Community Wellness Initiative

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Kitchener, ON
African Community Wellness Initiative

A grassroots initiative seeking to increase Black community participation in promoting holistic community wellness

04/11/2026

We're so EXCITED for our ACWI youth who have an awesome opportunity this spring to promote their own wellness as part of the Black Youth Mental Wellness Circle!

ACWI's Seven Wellness Goals is a great tool for youth who want to grow in various areas of wellness. The tool has been co-designed with our youth and Afrocentric Counslelling practitioners to guide our seasonal mental health circle work with youth. The tool includes an easy-to-use personal weekly tracker allowing youth to identify their own wellness goals and activities, and track their progress during the program weeks!

The Seven Wellness Goals are rooted in our understanding that youth mental wellness is deeply connected to youth wholistic wellness. We are thankful for community partners, our practitioners and mentours, parents, and all allies who are coming alongside our youth as they take this journey!

03/25/2026

We are so thrilled to be reconnecting with the crew again for our Spring Black Youth Wellness Circles that launched during March Break! Thank you to Camino Wellbeing + Mental Health for partnering with us!

This March and April Our youth are engaging in fun play-based circle events in the community as well as dinner and conversation circles on Thursday nights at Camino's Charles St. E location.

01/24/2026

Thanks to a generous grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Waterloo Region is now home to its first Black and Indigenous Youth Mental Health Practice Model!

On January 22, 2026, Kitchener Centre MPP Aislinn Clancy joined leaders from African, Caribbean and Black–identifying communities, First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities, and mental health partners to learn about the impact of this work.

Over the past three years, four lead partners — The Healing of The Seven Generations, African Community Wellness Initiative, Kind Minds Family Wellness, and AFRO-African Family Revival Organization — have worked together, with Camino Wellbeing + Mental Health as a support partner, to co-design a model rooted in culture, community, and the lived experiences of youth.

This work centres youth voices and creates more responsive, meaningful support for Black and Indigenous youth across Waterloo Region.

You can explore the full practice model on our website:
👉 https://www.caminowellbeing.ca/news-blog/waterloo-regions-black-indigenous-youth-mental-health-practice-model

01/21/2026

Registration for tomorrow's in-person event is full! We are looking forward to seeing everyone! If you missed the in-person registration but are still interested in participating, there is still time to register to join us online!

01/19/2026

REGISTRATION CLOSES TODAY!

We're looking for are looking forward to hosting community members at an open community meeting this Thursday evening to share Waterloo Region's first Black & Indigenous Youth Mental Health - Practice Model.

Register TODAY to ensure your spot! Dinner is included. See the flyer below for more details!

10/28/2025

We are thinking about communities in Jamaica and praying for protection over lives. Please follow Caribbean Canadian Association of Waterloo Region for information on how to show support.

08/13/2025

Yesterday we had a wonderful time at our Gardener's Picnic at Steckle Heritage Farm! Thank you to all the gardeners who made it out. So wonderful to experience the land with such a rich intergenerational community of grandparents, parents, children, youth and our beloved "garden babies" :)

07/24/2025

Thanks to our project and land- partners that provide spaces much needed spaces for organizing and for African youth land-based learning this summer!

Steckle Heritage Farm
Wisahkotewinowak
Camino Wellbeing + Mental Health

07/17/2025

This evening one of our beloved Congolese gardening mamas (and YCG youth mom) at the Patchwork Community Garden site was happy to harvest and bunch a significant amount East African Dodo vegetable plant. She is joined by Chantal, our ACWI practitioner. Dodo grows wild at Northdale after being introduced about a decade ago by our East African (South Sudanese) members of the gardening community.

In North American organic food networks, Dodo vegetable plant is known as Amaranth and is recognized for it's nutritious value, however in mainstream Canadian culture it is referred to as pigw**d and is usually regarded as an invasive w**d. Immigrant gardeners may face pressure to "w**d out" Dodo plant from their plots. In Indigenous communities of Turtle Island, Amaranth plants like Red Amaranth are valued for their medicinal and traditional herbal uses.

In East African communities, as in many communities around the world, Dodo vegetable plant is a more economically accessible and nutritious vegetable, high in antioxidants, proteins, and various minerals and does not demand excessive labour to grow. Being aware of Dodo plant is helpful for late and mid-season plot clearing. The Dodo leaves harvested this evening will be a valuable addition to the nutrition of a local household over the next several weeks.

We are thankful for the plant-identification wisdom of our African gardening moms. ACWI has been supporting the Patchwork Community Garden plots at the Northdale Site that were established in 2011 as part of the Multicultural Community Gardens project intended to increase food security in local immigrant communities. For ACWI, the family plots have been a wonderful site for intergenerational knowledge exchange. Being walking distance from the Sunnydale Community means the site is walking distance for many of our gardening families.

We appreciate the continued access provided by our land partners at Laurier Sustainability Office to keep this important food justice work moving forward.

07/16/2025

So thankful to all the partners providing space to our Black Youth Wellness Circle this summer. This week had a great YCG land-based session on Monday (thanks to space being extended by Wisahkotewinowak and Steckle Heritage Farm. Tomorrow evening we are back indoors at Camino Wellbeing + Mental Health for our weekly dinner and conversation.

07/11/2025

It's been a very full week for our Black Youth Wellness Circle. The week had an amazing start on Monday with some land-based programming at YCG Northdale Site. The youth are making great connections between mental wellness and connecting to the land!

07/04/2025

Our youth wellness circles offer a great opportunity for young people to begin the process of identifying tools and strategies for working with their own emotions. This is lifelong work that is beneficial at all stages of life, and it's especially helpful during the pre-teen and teen years!

We learned this week that a great first step is identifying our existing tools and strategies that we use daily especially for managing BIG emotions! Youth will then get an opportunity to reflect on the effectiveness of each of their tools and also be exposed to new tools.

These are also great conversations that any parent or youth caregiver can try to explore at home. Building emotional awareness into our regular conversations and outside of crisis situations increases internal supports that can be helpful in stressful times. A tip from our team for adult allies engaging youth in conversations about their emotions is to include an activity like writing out a list, drawing or another physical activity that helps youth process and externalize feelings in a comfortable way, rather than direct face to face conversation. This summer, all our youth participants will be developing their own Personal Wellness Action Plan, an individual toolkit of tools and resources that they can bring back to their regular lives!

ACWI practitioners believe in providing psychoeducation opportunities to all our amazing youth in a culturally safe space. For more information about our circle programs, reach out to us at:

info@africancommunitywellness.org

Thank you once again to our partners at Camino Wellbeing + Mental Health for providing us space to engage in this important work!

Address

480 Charles Street E
Kitchener, ON
N2G4K5

Website

http://www.africancommunitywellness.org/

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