Meet the Team!
Queen Kukoyi
Ex. Dir. Of Operations & Finance
Queen is a Black, queer mother, author, art educator, scholar, activist, mental health advocate, and international artist. Queen uses visual arts, mindfulness and story telling to facilitate discourse that decolonizes the Black identity and affirms all intersections of Blackness.
queen@bsamcanada.ca
Nico Taylor
Ex. Dir. Of Communications
Nico is a scholar, cosplayer and activist who uses feminism and critical race theory to dissect social constructions surrounding race and representation. She holds a Master’s in Media Studies where her research touched on decolonial practices, cosplay subculture and Afrofuturism.
nico@bsamcanada.ca
Shelly Grace
Marketing Assistant
Shelly Grace is a storyteller, poet, public speaker and educator. She uses her lived experience as a Black woman to tell stories that both celebrate Blackness and challenge the world in which we live in. She is a business graduate from X University where she majored in marketing, as she loves brand storytelling.
The Board
Rokhaya Gueye
Chief Marketing & Communication Officer for Tanél Health
As a community servant, Rokhaya has, for the past 24+ years, volunteered her time by working tirelessly to help various non-profit organizations both locally and abroad.
Rokhaya is passionate about social change, women & youth empowerment, technology, community economic development, construction, and philanthropy. She also fervently believes that, “Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful’! Vouloir c’est pouvoir!
She’s also a carpenter for Local 27!
Kwesi Johnson
Interim Manager - Revitalization and Renewal Communities at Toronto Community Housing
Kwesi has dedicated the past two decades to finding innovative solutions that will bridge the gap between access to education, employment, skills development and life-changing resources making institutions more accessible and equitable spaces for marginalized seniors, youth and their families who are often disproportionately racialized communities experiencing complex socioeconomic disparities.
Jonathan Ofori
Founder and Managing Director of Broadbase Human Resources
Jonathan holds a Bachelor of Sciences degree from the University of Toronto, and the CHRP designation from the Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario. His credentials include over 20 years of experience in both corporate and agency human resources services.
His achievements have earned him perennial President’s Club citations, as well as a Lifetime Achievement award.
Levyi-Alexander Love
Singer / Songwriter
Levyi-Alexander Love is an Artist born in Toronto, Ontario. He is a dude who loves to have fun, kick back and make sick art. His passion for music and poetry really comes from a deep need to be seen, heard and understood by an entity that can hold him as he evolves and searches for himself, through himself.
Levyi is a mostly self taught singer songwriter and poet who creates art that promotes people to connect and feel all their feelings as they come; you can say his art gives people permission to be.
Natalie Higgins
Founder of Logan's Photography
Toronto native, mother of two, photographer, accountant, entrepreneur and cosplayer.
“The joy of making people happy weather in my studio or in cosplay lets me know I’m doing my job right in life. Wonder Woman fights for love and justice, she one of the main cosplays that I play. So as a strong black woman, I love showing little black girls and everyone else in this world that we have the love and power to be anything.”
Gerard Meade
Black Youth Jobs
Gerard is a representative of an organization that provides services in the Greater Toronto Area with African Canadian focused community economic development programs since 2009. Using culturally competent engagement, BYJT leverages corporate, government and local community leadership resources to provide innovative One on one support by drop-in or appointment, career consulting and advocacy.
Previous Team Members
We take great pride in the team members who have previously contributed to our growth and continue to support us on our journey!
Danya Elsayed
Previous Assistant Communications Coordinator for Archiving Black Futures Project
Mishele Morgan
Previous Executive
Administrative Assistant
Eloya Williams
Previous Social
Media Assistant
Shelly Grace
Previous Marketing Assistant