Era 21 Networking breakfast celebrates Black History & Asian Heritage Months

Wednesday 7 May, Senator Lillian Eva Quan Dyck hosted over a hundred high school students and adults in various professions and businesses, selected from Ottawa’s diverse ethnic and racial populations at the 10th Annual Era 21 Networking breakfast at the Parliamentary restaurant on Parliament Hill. Sponsored by the Royal Bank of Canada, Era 21 Networking Breakfast for Young Canadians encourages young people who make up our nation’s unique citizenry, to network across their diverse ethnicities and cultures. The panel is invited to stress the importance of self-motivation, networking, skills development, and cultural fluency, transcending racial and cultural divides, toward leadership in our rapidly changing globalized economy. The Breakfast is offered jointly as a Black History and Asian Heritage Month, and was initiated by June Girvan, J’Nikira Dinqinesh Education Centre in 2005. The theme for 2014 was: “The Global Power of Young Canadians”. The event featured retired Senator Vivienne Poy, first Canadian senator of Asian descent, as keynote speaker; panel members Kluane Adamek of the Kluane First Nations and spoken word artist and Carleton University Math student, King Kimbit, whose parents arrived in Canada as refugees with the boat people from Vietnam.

“The Global Power of Young Canadians” stems from growing up in a nation where diversity is in dynamic interplay with the unifying values that bind us together as Canadians. With the heritage of over 200 ethno-cultural groups represented among us, Canada is a cultural microcosm of the world. Without leaving home, Era 21 Young Canadians have peers from numerous backgrounds with whom to build networks. The attitudes, knowledge, and skills that are formed in network building are powerful tools for success in a rapidly changing, multicultural and global society. United by Canadian values that stress the importance of sharing in each other’s cultures, young Canadians can become global citizens, open to learning, at ease with differences, and adept at negotiating cultural, racial and linguistic boundaries.
Canadian identity, with diversity at its core, enriches our life experiences, and transforms us into individuals who are comfortable working, living, and travelling anywhere in Canada, and around the world.