Editor
Good morning all
Happy New Year to you and your loved ones! Can’t believe that 2014 has come and gone! And Black Ottawa Scene is waxing stronger with each passing day. Our electronic tracking tool reveals that we now average over 1200 readers for each edition; the majority are from within Canada, as to be expected, but we are pleasantly surprised to hear from readers from as far away as Brazil, United Kingdom, Nigeria, Philippines, south Africa, Kenya and even Russia. How about that for a global reach!
For the first edition of the new year, we have some interesting goodies for you. Top story is the award from the Canadian Race Relations Foundation to June Girvan, one of Ottawa’s foremost community leaders. June is founder and Executive Director of J’Nikira Dinqinesh Education Centre, Vice President of Black History Ottawa and founder and mentor of Every Child is Sacred and Children For One Another. If anyone deserves this honour, it has to be her. The Christmas holiday season would not be complete without the usual round of parties and festivities. Not to disappoint, we feature the Noble Women of Ottawa, Jaku Konbit’s Kwanzaa celebrations, Igbo community Christmas party, Akwa-Cross end of year send off for the Udeoyop family, Network of Black Business and Professional Women Christmas cocktail, and Ghana’s Midezor Ewe Association’s Christmas gala. Still on the social scene, we reach back to last summer’s Festival Kafé-Karamel in Gatineau. Community Connections brings you Queen ‘Masenate Mohato Seeiso in attendance at the “Help Lesotho” 10th anniversary. On the serious side, our guest columnist Annette Ejiofor offers a young woman’s perspective on the Bill Cosby debate; the allegations against the black mega star continue to dog the headlines. Andy Kusi-Appiah joins forces with former federal minister David Kilgour to offer thoughtful insights into continental Africa and weigh in with their predictions for 2015. Our interview brings us Edwin Okon, head coach of Nigeria’s Super Falcons, the senior women’s soccer team; we had caught up with him when he was in Ottawa for the draw for the 2015 Women’s World Cup, scheduled for Canada in June 2015.
We start an exciting new feature, Fotorama, showcasing photographs from black amateur and professional photographers. In our inaugural piece, Debbie Miller offers readers a diverse display of stunning images. When she is not taking pics, Debbie works to keep the streets of Ottawa safe in her day job as a police officer.
Last but not the least, we urge you to take part on our survey on how you manage to get through the winter, but only for those readers who reside in Canada and other temperate regions where severe cold weather is a fact of life.
With those and more, we ask you to enjoy.
Godwin Ifedi
Editor