Video features staff, including Ingrid Atyeo (L) and Angela Ejumudo, discussing the importance of marking UHN’s first Black History Month. (Video: UHN Visual Services)
It's an opportunity to celebrate and to educate.
In honour of UHN's first Black History Month, a committee of staff representing all hospitals and a wide array of departments teamed up with
UHN Visual Services to produce a video on why it's important to mark the occasion, which has been celebrated since 1979 in Toronto and across Canada since 1996.
The plan is to make Black History Month at UHN an annual event every February. This year it featured displays and billboards at each hospital focusing on the rich stories, backgrounds and experiences of black people in Toronto, Ontario and across Canada.
"To me, Black History Month means the opportunity to educate society," Ingrid Atyeo, a nurse at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre for more than 30 years and a member of the Black History Month at UHN Committee, says in the video. "We're a multicultural society and I think there's still much ignorance about the roles black people played in our communities, in our society.
"Many of our patients are from black and diverse backgrounds and I think it will help to enlighten."
