Black & Here Community Centre to open in downtown Victoria on August 1st

On August 1st, the much-anticipated Black & Here Community Centre will be opening in downtown Victoria on the corner of Douglas and Johnson Streets. 

The opening of this centre is the culmination of years of work by the BC Black History Awareness Society (BCBHAS), who have operated in Victoria since 1994. 

The organization has been running programming and events for Black community members in Greater Victoria and beyond since its inception, but have never had their own space. 

“This has been a dream for many many years,” Jamila Douhaibi, executive director of BCBHAS told Victoria Buzz. 

They noted that one of BCBHAS board members—who is an elder in the community with family ties to the first Black immigrants that came from San Francisco in 1858—was talking about how long she’s been wanting this.

“Community members who moved here 20 years ago and looked around wouldn’t see a lot of folks who looked like them, but now the visibility and representation is a lot higher,” Douhaibi explained. 

In order to acquire the space, BCBHAS partnered with an organization with aligning values and goals. 

Around three years ago, they started in conversation with Rep Here in Canada, a non-profit organization that supports immigrants, refugees and newcomers. 

“We’ve been in conversation about having and creating this space and realizing this is something we could do by ourselves, but it makes way more sense to do things in collaboration,” Douhaibi explained. 

“We started looking for a space and we were just really lucky to find the space where we’re at.”

As both organizations will be splitting the cost of running the community centre, they came up with the name “Black & Here” as a way to combine their names and ethos in the centre’s namesake. 

The space they ended up finding was formerly a 7-11, located at 1327 Douglas Street. 

“It definitely does not look like a 7-11 anymore,” Douhaibi laughed. 

“It’s been cleaned up, bathrooms have been added, there’s a stage with accessible ramp, there’s a beautiful community mural in here now—its just big, open, bright and kind of just open for all the future possibilities.”

Some features of the centre include a fully accessible space, three bathrooms and plenty of outlets and tables for people to work and study there. 

Douhaibi noted that the space is mostly just one big open space, allowing event organizers to move things around to best suit their needs while hosting community members. 

The renovations to the space ended up taking a bit longer than anticipated during early stages, but now the space is complete and ready for its grand opening ribbon-cutting ceremony on August 1st. 

This date is of particular importance as it marks Emancipation Day in Canada. 

August 1st now commemorates the day in 1834 when the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 took effect across the British Empire.

“Highlighting that date, creating more awareness around it and having that as the date for our opening makes it even more powerful,” she said. 

“One of the big things is that on August 1st, 1843, it wasn’t suddenly Black people were free and slavery in Canada didn’t exist—anyone who was older than six still had to work 40 hours a week unpaid and actual Emancipation didn’t come until several years later and obviously we’re still fighting for equality and that’s why this centre is so important.”

Douhaibi noted that the centre will be at capacity for the ribbon-cutting ceremony through RSVPs, but there is a waitlist for those who want to put their name down in hopes of attendance. 

Once open, the Black & Here Community Centre will be putting on several programs and events, primarily for Black community members in the region to gather and connect, but it will also welcome all members of the community for certain occasions. 

Over the past month or so, BCBHAS has been inviting members to the space and getting their ideas of what they would like to see in terms of programming. 

Douhaibi noted that some ideas included a tea to bring elders together, bringing a choir in on Friday nights, some health and wellness programs were made and after-school sessions for youth to gather and study.

“The sky’s the limit,” she said. “As community members come in, if there’s things they want to see and do, it really is a community space and we want people to come in and be in the space as they want to.”

Following the opening ceremony, Douhaibi said that there are a few events on the docket. 

On Sunday, August 2nd, there will be open mural time for artists who created the community mural in the space to show their work to friends, family and community members. There will also be a songwriting session with local musician Caleb Hart. 

Wednesday, August 5th will see a unique event take place where facilitators will speak with community members about the power in their names as well as traditional remedies and herbiculture. 

According to Douhaibi, those events are just the tip of the iceberg—once the space is open there will be a plethora of programs and events for all community members to gather at and connect.