Shindara making her mark on Black History Month

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on February 15, 2025.

Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman Grade 10 student Shindara Kayode-Olayemi is leaving a footprint by celebrating Black History Month at high school level for what she believes to be the first time at Lethbridge Collegiate Institute in hopes to inspire others to do the same.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

A Grade 10 student at Lethbridge Collegiate Institute is looking to leave a solid footprint and hopefully a legacy, by creating awareness of the many contributions done by Black-Canadians across Canada and worldwide during Black History Month.

Shindara Kayode-Olayemi recently spoke about her desire to show high school students what Black History Month is all about, by sharing multiple facts, music, history and more during the first couple of weeks of February.

“I feel very good, and I feel like I’ve achieved something. It’s a great feeling having people like me feel very welcomed in school because the population of black people in Lethbridge it’s a growing thing,” said Kayode-Olayemi.

She said it was important for her to let people “who look like her” learn about the impact others have had and to make an impact herself by doing so.

“The staff has been very welcoming to the idea of celebrating Black History Month. It was a lot of stepping outside my comfort zone because I wasn’t someone who really wanted to be in the limelight,” said Kayode-Olayemi. “But as of last year, I started looking for more ways to put black people out there because we’re not only consumers, but we’re also producers.”

She said she wanted to showcase the many things black people have done for Canada and worldwide and the staff was welcoming of the idea as LCI is a very inclusive school.

Since Kayode-Olayemi is in Grade 10 at the moment, she said this is something she will be trying to expand in the future and she hopes to inspire other Black student like herself, to get involve so one day when she graduates, she can pass on the torch for the celebration of Black History Month to continue on without her at LCI.

“After I graduate, I want someone to feel the need to take it over for me. I want someone to have that resilience or driving force to be like, if she could do it, what’s stopping me? And for someone to take initiative and do it as well, because I want to inspire people and motivate them,” said Kayode-Olayemi.

She added that she also hopes that those who get inspired to continue on after she graduates, that they make it bigger and better than what she is able to accomplish during her time there.

“There’s nothing stopping someone else from achieving it or even doing better than me and leaving a bigger footprint that I’m able to leave,” said Kayode-Olayemi.

She said she hopes to be a role model in students lives, to inspire them to do things that are outside of their comfort zone to be able to accomplish what they want to.

“You can definitely make an impact. There’s always something that needs to be done. This world is not perfect. Don’t just sit around being sorry that all this is not happening and complaining, rather take matters into your own hands and do what needs to be done,” said Kayode-Olayemi.

In terms of what she was able to share with her fellow students about Black History Month, Kayode-Olayemi said there was a lot of activities that took place, with some big names attached to them.

“We had Cheryl Foggo do a meeting with us for an hour and that was great. She’s, someone I look up to, because she’s a playwright, a journalist, and a director, among other things. She’s an awesome person in general and she knows a lot about what Black people have done across Canada,” said Kayode-Olayemi.

 According to Foggo’s LinkedIn profile, she specializes in researching and disseminating the stories of Black pioneers on the Canadian Prairies.

“She has so much passion because she can actually relate to black people, and she likes getting their stories out. She made the John Ware Reclaimed movie, which was directed by her and it’s mostly about awareness of Black people and what they have done for Canada as a whole, which is definitely something admirable,” said Kayode-Olayemi.

She added that students were also able to learn about black culture through music and food, with an event called Taste of the Nation, where students shared their different cultural dishes with others and they were also able to watch a special video from someone in a government position.

“NDP MLA (for Edmonton-City Centre) David Shepherd was able to do a six-minute-long video addressing LCI and listing multiple black discoveries that has happened in Lethbridge for students to gain awareness of the contributions Black people have made for Lethbridge or southern Alberta as a whole,” said Kayode-Olayemi.