Halifax’s Delmore 'Buddy' Daye Learning Institute celebrates its 10th anniversary

An institute in Halifax’s north end is celebrating a decade of teaching the community about educational issues affecting African Nova Scotians.

The Delmore "Buddy" Daye Learning Institute is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a gala dinner and dance Friday night and an open house on Saturday.

The institute’s CEO says it feels “amazing” to celebrate the milestone.

“In 2012, this inaugural board was thinking, ‘Hey, how are we going to do something momentous? How are we going to do something impactful for our community?’ And they thought, ‘Let’s launch the institute,’” says Sylvia Parris-Drummond.

“It’s what the community said they wanted us to do and so here we are now with a physical space that we’re celebrating, as well as all the programming that we do with them for our community.”

The institute focuses on both Africentric research and publications.

“We do programming for youth, we do programming for the community, everything is centred from us. Afrocentricity is about centring ourselves in our voice,” says Parris-Drummond.

“You want to know about our history, our culture, our contributions? We’ve got resources for that in the public school system. You want to understand more about what really needs to change in terms of policy? We got participatory action research.”

Over the past 10 years, the institute’s physical space has gown, which Parris-Drummond says gives them an opportunity to do more programming.

She says a philosophy change has also been implemented by teaching the value of “Ubuntu.”

“Ubuntu has a value about your success is my success, your success is my success. So we’re all about supporting each other and collaborating.”

And many people in the community want to celebrate the institute‘s success -- the Friday night gala at The Westin Nova Scotian is currently sold out.

“If folks weren’t able to come, we feel for you in terms of that, but our keynote speaker Rev. (Nontombi Naomi) TooToo will be talking about this idea of ubuntu and about how it is impacting and effective here in Nova Scotia – for Black Nova Scotians and for all folks in general,” Parris-Drummond says.

The institute’s open house kicks off at 2 p.m. Saturday at their office, which is located on Cornwallis Street.

“You’ll have a chance to see a little bit about our research and talk to that department. You’ll see some of the publications, like our textbook that’s in the public schools, Black History: Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas, you’ll be able to hear more about that,” says Parris-Drummond.

“Think about this as a celebration of 10 years and a launch into the future.”