I Am Making a Change
by Neil Armstrong
photography by HORST HERGET
Rianna Brown is enthusiastic about her job with the BlackNorth Initiative, where her responsibilities include examining the social media of the company, creating posts on its platforms and analyzing their social media growth. It is a bonus to her that the company is predominantly Black and represents Black excellence as she pursues her goal to work in corporate communications or public relations.
As a second-year Communication and Media Studies student, Brown says her program at York is mostly theory-based, so she appreciates the insight and hands-on experience that she is gaining from this internship.
I want to work with a company that has values that I also relate to or can understand
Created by a partnership of York University and TECHNATION’s Black Excellence Program, Brown found out about the communications position from a posting on the Experience York portal. The BlackNorth Initiative supports Black entrepreneurs in Canada.
“I’ve always said … I want to work with a company that has values that I also relate to or can understand,” says Brown, who started her internship in February. “Working for this company and being behind a lot of the things that they do is very inspiring, and it shows that I am making a change – even in a position that I’m studying for,” says Brown.
Through TECHNATION’s Career Ready Program and a York University partnership to fund student hires for eligible companies, Chanée Dowdie (BA ’17), creative innovator of One Empire Inc. and owner of Mississauga-based restaurant Honey Soul Food, hired a summer student in 2023.
For seven years, Dowdie was managing chain restaurants such as Swiss Chalet, Kelseys and Montana’s, but with the onset of the pandemic, she decided to leave and start her own business.
It was time to just do it for myself
“It was time to just do it for myself, and it was really easy to transition because of my experience, but also because of my business major.”
After opening the restaurant in April 2021, she said a series of connections, starting with the BlackNorth Initiative, eventually led to York University introducing her to TECHNATION’s Career Ready Program.
“If I could do it again this year, I definitely would, because what I learned and the experience that my student-employee gained, it was amazing.”
The program aims to create an equitable digital workforce by addressing systemic barriers and supporting Black student communities within Canada’s tech sector, among other goals. It offers participating employers a talent pool of Black Excellence students enrolled at York University.
Dowdie has recommended the program to other CEOs she knows because “sometimes when it comes to staffing, especially staffing that represents our business, it can be hard to find.” ■
