Anti-Black Racism Action Plan
To support the UN International Decade for People of African Descent proclamation and advance its Anti-Racism Strategy, City Administration is working with Edmonton communities to co-create an Anti-Black Racism Action Plan. This action plan is driven and guided by Edmonton’s Black communities and their needs, and supported and facilitated by the municipal government of Edmonton.
Community engagements held between December 2022 and March 2023 resulted in the What We Heard report, which summarizes the experiences and input shared with the consultants at the time of report submission. Those experiences and voices then shaped and informed the creation of the
Anti-Black Racism Action Plan
containing community’s recommendations on how the City of Edmonton can build equity, address racism and create an anti-racist corporation and city.
Guided by these recommendations, Administration is accelerating implementation of the Anti-Racism Strategy. Current actions to address the strategy include:
- An advisory board to help shape and inform the creation of a community-based independent body for anti-racism has been in place for 6 months and a final report is expected by spring 2024.
- Two senior staff were hired into the City Manager’s Office in 2022 to provide leadership for the City’s anti-racism and intersectionality, and reconciliation work. A high level office focusing on anti-racism will be activated later this summer.
- An additional $1.2 million dollars (for a total of $1.5 million) has been allocated to an enhanced community-responsive Anti-Racism Grant program focusing on: youth and seniors activation, project ready matching, capacity building and innovation, participatory research and sharing voices of under-represented communities. Now open, the program is accepting applications until September 13, 2023.
In addition to this work, the first diverse fellowship for Council was recruited this year, which saw youth from racialized and Indigenous communities placed with Councillors in May-June of this year. The goal was to:
- Encourage the youth to gain leadership experience
- Grow their professional network
- Learn new skills in the public sector
- Share their lived experience and new ideas with the city’s leadership
Additional work focused on internal systems at the City are also underway.
Thank you to everyone who provided their time and voices to inform the Anti-Black Racism Action Plan and its recommendations.
We are committed to providing safe spaces that welcome Black communities in Edmonton to share their voices and to applying an Afrocentric lens and approach throughout our anti-racism work.