SpeakUP! International Inc.

You can hear it right away: Augustine Obang moves through the world with purpose, and he’s not interested in surface-level advice. From being raised in Toronto’s Jane and Finch community to working in primary health care and mental health support, Augustine brings a grounded, hopeful perspective on what it actually takes to help people heal, especially seniors facing depression, isolation, and chr...

A teacher blocks Black boys from a math club, a student earns a perfect score on an international exam, and the achievement is quietly buried. That story is where our conversation with Kathy McDonald begins, and it quickly widens into a blunt look at how anti-Black racism in education can hide behind “normal” decisions that shape a child’s future. Kathy is a Peel District School Board trustee, the...

Policy is the quiet force that decides who gets protected, who gets funded, and who gets left out. In November 2023, we’re joined by Velma Morgan, an educator and former Ontario government director of policy who has worked across five ministries and now serves as chair of Operation Black Vote Canada, to talk frankly about how real systemic change happens in Canada. We get into the nuts and bolts o...

We sit down with Mr. Alex Ihama in November 2023 to get practical about anti-racism work, workplace equity, and how to move from public statements to measurable culture change. We also go personal on youth mental health, educator impact, tokenism, and the belief-driven mindset Alex calls “greatness.” We also dig into what real DEI and anti-racism consulting looks like behind the scenes: setting cl...

A councillor’s job sounds big, but most residents feel it in small moments: the email that never gets answered, the neighbourhood problem that sits for months, the sense that decisions happen somewhere else and you only hear about them after. We sit down with Neil Simon, a community leader, pastor, and small business owner running for Toronto City Council in Ward 9 Davenport, to talk about what lo...

Systems don’t change because we want them to. They change when we’re willing to admit they were built to produce the results we’re living with, then do the hard work of redesign. That’s the core of our conversation with Dr. Kathy Hogarth, Associate Vice President of Global Strategy at Wilfrid Laurier University, and a scholar-practitioner whose journey spans Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and Canad...

 Black History Month in Canada feels permanent now, but it was never guaranteed. We talk with Rosemary Sadlier, researcher, author, and longtime leader with the Ontario Black History Society, about the unglamorous, determined work it took to move Black History Month from community celebration to national recognition. She walks us through the reality of advocacy before social media: missed deadline...

A kid is up at 7:30 a.m. for a program that starts at eight not because it’s trendy, but because it means a real meal, real coaching, and adults who actually listen. That’s the kind of front-line truth Kevin Francis brings to SpeakUP! International, and it’s why his work hits so hard. Kevin is a lifelong community supporter and activist, and he’s co-founded Diversified Youth Initiative to build su...

Join us on SpeakUP! International for a deeply moving episode with Kwanza Msingwana! Kwanza opens with “Old Woman, Sing Me a Song,” a breathtaking spoken-word tribute to his mother who held on to her wisdom, resilience and grace. From there, we follow the poetry back to its origins and forward to our own responsibilities. In this episode, we explore: How a music-making trip to Jamaica completely r...

“I don’t see colour” can sound polite, but Nana Dei calls colourblindness an insult and explains why: the problem isn’t colour; it’s the meaning and power we attach to it. We talk about what it takes to teach with critical consciousness in Canada, where anti-Black racism, colonial history, and school gatekeeping still shape who feels valued, safe, and seen.  Nana Day, a globally recognized Univers...

A lot of people say they support equity, diversity, and inclusion, but far fewer are willing to challenge the systems that keep producing the same unequal outcomes. We’re joined by Dr. Ardavan Eizadirad, assistant professor in Ontario teacher education and executive director with YACE in Toronto’s Jane and Finch community, to talk about what real EDI work looks like when it’s grounded in service,...

What is it like when decades of hard work & isolation suddenly become public recognition (Order of Ontario)? For decades, Dwayne Morgan was building a life of private sacrifice before the public recognition of his achievements. In our latest episode, legendary spoken word poet and community leader Dwayne Morgan sits down with us to pull back the curtain on long-game creativity. From building c...

Burnout gets framed as a personal problem far too often, so we sit down with author and DEI speaker Rochelle Ramatte to name what many people are living: sometimes the workplace is the hazard. Rochelle shares her journey from being overlooked in school in Edmonton to earning a master’s degree in social work, and how one moment of being truly seen by a professor changed her identity and direction....

3% is a number that should stop you cold. C.J. Stewart tells us you’ve got roughly a 3% chance of making it to pro sports and, in Atlanta, a similar shot at escaping poverty if you’re born into it. C.J. knows both worlds. He’s a former Chicago Cubs outfielder, and he’s now the chief visionary officer and co-founder of the L.E.A.D. Center for Youth, a sports-based youth development non-profit built...

Somebody is making money off Black suffering, and that truth changes how we understand everything from politics to philanthropy to the stories we tell about ourselves. We sit down with Dennis Maurice Dumpson , author and founder of Invest Black, to name what he calls the black pain economy and how racial capitalism turns harm into a revenue model that rewards extraction while demanding endless dur...

SPIRITUAL TRAP OF OVERGIVING   During our latest episode of SpeakUP! International, we sit down with the incredible Rev. Dr. Denise Gillard , pastor, transformational coach, and entrepreneur. Dr. Gillard starts the podcast by reading a beautiful, quiet excerpt from her children’s book, Music from the Sky , before diving into a much braver conversation. What happens when a strong, capable woman kee...

That’s the exact line a potential funder threw in Roger Dundas’s face when he was trying to launch a new venture. For most, it would be a door slammed in their face. For Roger, it became pure, unadulterated fuel. In this explosive new episode of the SpeakUP! International podcast, we sit down with Toronto-based entrepreneur and ByBlacks co-founder, Roger Dundas , to dismantle this myth and expose...

A formal White House event, a glass of wine she never wanted, and a President calling her by name while she’s trying to keep it together. That’s how our conversation with Dr. Trudi Michelle Morrison begins, and it only gets more honest from there. We talk about what recognition can mean when you’re a Black woman in spaces where you’re treated like a symbol before you’re treated like a person, and...

What happens when the career you’ve built suddenly vanishes, and you realize—with terrifying clarity—that you could be broke by 65? Most people would panic. David Nassif decided to build a compass. In this episode of SpeakUP! International , we sit down with David to unpack an extraordinary story of resilience, reinvention, and financial survival. After traditional job hunting felt like a dead end...

One careless “you can’t” can stick to a young person for years, but it can also light a fuse. We’re joined by Dr. Beverly-Jean Daniel, scholar, educator, and advocate whose work spans more than 35 years at the intersection of race, equity, and urban education. She shares what it was like migrating from Trinidad and Tobago at 16 and hearing, for the first time, that her goals were unrealistic, not...

Is your bank account suffering from "death by a thousand cuts"? Most of us are overpaying for our basic existence without even realizing it. In this episode, Rita and I sit down with Kirby D. Wilson , a North Carolina based financial strategist and entrepreneur, to learn how to turn those "dead weight" expenses into serious leverage. What We’re Diving Into: The "Bills To B...

A bad day can wreck your plans, but it should not get to make your decisions. We sit down with Phoebe Trotman , multi Hall of Fame soccer player, entrepreneur, author of the Never Quit On A Bad Day book series, and a coach who brings athlete-level clarity to real life.    We dig into what a “champion mindset” actually means. Phoebe explains why obstacles are not a stop sign, how growth happens at...

Money can buy comfort, but it cannot buy a life that feels like yours. We sit down with Kenneth G Alexander, award-winning entrepreneur, author of The Successful Man: A New Vision of Masculinity, and a former US Marine, to pull apart the story many boys inherit early: make money, achieve status, suppress emotion, and you will be “successful”. Kenneth explains how that doctrine of patriarchy and cu...

Money can look like a numbers problem while it acts like an identity problem. We’re talking with Jacqueline Blair, a money mindset coach who works closely with Black women entrepreneurs, about why so many of us can earn, hustle, and grind, yet still feel stuck in paycheque-to-paycheque cycles, guilt, overgiving, or “mysterious” overspending. Her lens is clear: when generations have lived with lack...

Silence can be a muzzle, but it can also be a strategy. We sit down with Majella Mark , cultural strategist, filmmaker, and author of Cats Are Trash, right after she reads a powerful passage on Women in Black and the way quiet protest can cut through a sea of violence. From there, we follow the thread that runs through everything she does: storytelling is not decoration, it is infrastructure. We d...