PhD student wins Community-Engaged Partnership Award

Reprinted with permission from the SFU Community-Engaged Research Initiative (CERi) 

Alice Mũthoni Mũrage initiated the African Ancestry Project in 2020 in partnership with the BC Black History Awareness Society and SFU to bring awareness to the diversity of Black people in BC. The project report Worlds Within centers stories of over 160 participants highlighting their diverse histories, identities, and experiences. Alices hopes to inspire a questioning of deep-seated misperceptions and attitudes and disrupt stereotypes that contribute to anti-Black racism and treatment of people of African ancestry as a monolith. Community leaders and members were engaged in the design of the project and, interpretation and presentation of findings. Forty community members, for instance, comprehensively reviewed the first draft of the report and brainstormed on the title of the project report. Knowledge translation activities they suggested are currently being undertaken collaboratively. A documentary featuring six cast members, for instance, will be launched later this year. The project has benefited tremendously from partnerships at the Simon Fraser University including through the academic review of Dr. Maureen Kihika, and financial and in-kind support of the SFU African Studies Working Group, the SFU Community Engagement Initiative, the SFU Labour Studies Program, the SFU Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, and the SFU Equity Office and the Vice-President, People, Equity and Inclusion.