Titi Tijani is a leading activist, community organizer and president of the African Communities of Manitoba Incorporated, the umbrella body of all African associations in Manitoba. She spoke to New Canadian Media reporter Emmanuel Nwaneri about her dream to see every immigrant who arrives in the country working in the profession they trained for in their home countries. The following Q&A interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. What was your experience in finding a job when you arrived in Canada? I did not come to Canada as a student. I came to join my husband. It was after I got here, I faced the challenge of finding work in my field and to recognize the credentials that I brought from Nigeria; that was going nowhere. I am a graduate of Education from the University of Ilorin in Nigeria. After my credentials were assessed [in Canada], I was assessed as a Child Care Worker 1, which was not even for a school; it only allowed me to work elsewhere which was not my passion. I really wanted to work in a school which was my passion. That was what led me to go back to school, because I soon realized there was no other means of finding a job in my career. This actually only happened after eight years of being here in Canada – I wasn’t able to go back to school right away. There were challenges in that aspect also. I was asked to go do GED, which is like going back to Grade 10. There were many friends of mine whose university degrees were also not accepted. They were told they had to have the credentials from high school; to have your GED first before they could be accepted into universities here. So many who were here before me had to go through that path. I didn’t feel that I needed to do that, so I worked for a while and then when I decided to go back to school, I challenged my Department of Education. I had to do it this way, but I did pledge to myself that other people coming after me should not have to go through this struggle in order for them to be able to work in their fields. How did you do it? It was a real challenge at the time. But with dedication and passion, and having my orientation and my goal of being able to have the degree to get me the job that I wanted, I did it. You know, all these challenges and experiences laid the foundation for me getting into advocacy work and helping others. We started seeing people who had practised medicine in their country for 20 years and then they come here they are doing ‘survival’ jobs— driving taxis, washing dishes, things like that, and so we came together. That was how we moved to start working with the government in establishing the Office of Fair Assessments, which was created as a result of our advocacy. How did the African Communities of Manitoba Inc. (ACOMI) begin? I have always been a community-minded person who brings people together, especially being so far away from home. I’ve always felt that whatever I’m feeling, other people are feeling the same and so we shouldn’t die in misery. We shouldn’t suffer alone. I’ve always been the first to bring people together to reminisce about our experiences here, to share it, and then think of how we can overcome it. I started informally bringing together some of my friends from different organizations and communities. It was in 1997 that a group of people from four African countries came together. We had been hearing about this event, Folkorama, and felt we could also share our cultures. A few years later we came together and decided to see where things are going; we felt we needed to do more than bring people together once a year. That’s what led me and all of the others from those countries to band together and have one umbrella association. ACOMI is the organization for all of us. Is ACOMI connected with other African associations in Canada? Yes, we are reaching out. In Edmonton, there is the African Centre, which is an umbrella organization. There is also another one in Saskatchewan, African Communities Research Network, which we are reaching out to. We have all teamed up to form the African Communities of Western Canada to begin to advocate. We felt the need to come together because when we started advocating, we noticed that everything seems to begin and end in the East. I attended one national meeting at the time and someone from the leadership actually said that he had no idea that there were Black people in Western Canada. I almost fell off my chair. I’m sure you have had experiences, you have heard stories and; come across people who come here with very high qualifications, but are then forced to become taxi drivers or security guards. Do you think there is institutional racism in Canada? I don’t think one can deny that there is institutional racism in Canada.