Keisha Lamptey helps fill a gap in the Canadian beauty industry with inclusive haircare and skincare products
Keisha Lamptey wears an apron and clear plastic gloves as she carefully adds seed oils and seed butters to her stainless steel KitchenAid mixer. It loudly whips all the ingredients together, creating a smooth and uniform texture.
After a few minutes, she shuts off the mixer, lifts the mixing bowl and gently pours the contents into her filling machine.
An off-white creamy product comes out of the tube, filling the empty jar that she holds in her left hand with her homemade Moisturizing Hair Butter.
Lamptey is the owner of Nuances self-care, a company that manufactures natural, vegan and eco-friendly haircare and skincare products for women of all shades at an affordable cost.
Growing up in Montreal, Lamptey noticed that there was a minimal selection of products designed specifically for Black women in Canada. “I felt very underrepresented when shopping for products,” she said.
Courtesy photo provided by Keisha Lamptey
She explained that none of the mass-market beauty companies were Black-owned and none of them understood her needs as a woman with thick, curly hair. Products that did work for her had to be purchased from the United States, making it “just absolutely crazy expensive.” According to Lamptey, one small eight-ounce product would cost her $50.
“I thought to myself, ‘Canada deserves to have these products, too,’” Lamptey recalled. So, in 2017, she used her background in organic chemistry to begin experimenting with various formulas to create products catered to all skin types and kinky hair types.
But it wasn’t until December 2020 that she incorporated Nuances self-care after receiving the Canada Starts grant — a $5,000 cash prize sponsored by RBC Ventures aimed at helping aspiring entrepreneurs launch their business.
According to Lamptey, the grant covered all her start-up costs — including federal and provincial incorporation fees, website expenses, and the cost of necessary equipment, ingredients and packaging — all of which totalled about $3,700.
“Receiving that grant was so amazing,” she said. It allowed Nuances self-care to start off profitable from the get-go.
According to Lamptey, sales were high in the first few months of business. This was not only because it was the holiday season, but also because Quebec was under a lockdown, making it easier for customers to purchase their beauty products online.
Many of these early customers still support Nuances self-care nearly two years later, like Yasamin Fawzi.
‘[Nuances self-care’s products] feel good for my skin and hair and they’re really affordable,” Fawzi said. “I’m always about buying local, or buying stuff that’s more ethically sourced and natural.”
Today, Lamptey has 15 products listed on her website, each of which have gone through a detailed process. The process begins with months of researching, experimenting, and testing. Once Lamptey is satisfied with a product recipe, she orders the labels and packaging from the supplier and makes a batch for customers.
The final step of the process is marketing the new product.
According to Lamptey, she typically uses social media and her email newsletter to tease upcoming product releases and to announce new products when they come out.
But with the most recent launch, the Apple Cinnamon Body Butter, Lamptey tried a new marketing technique: she planned a launch party at a local Montreal shop. Those who wanted to purchase the product had to attend the event. It was so successful the product nearly sold out, totalling 35 sales and over $1,200 was made.
“It was a great way to create buzz and boost sales,” she said. “But it was also a good way to make myself relevant in people’s eyes.”
While Nuances self-care started as a retailer business through an e-commerce website, Lamptey is now exploring the wholesale business, too. Nuances self-care’s products are now sold in two hairdresser salons, one perfume store, one hair accessory store, and a few cafés around the city.
Courtesy photo provided by Keisha Lamptey
Lamptey shared that regular customer sales are highest in months with celebrations or holidays, with about 50 to 200 customer orders per month.
But in slower months, like last September and October, Lamptey noticed a decline in customer orders but an increase in wholesale orders. According to Lamptey, this shift is more profitable because businesses purchase more units compared to one regular customer.
Lamptey said that she dreams of selling her products in the United States and Europe, as well as selling in bigger stores like Walmart and Amazon.
While there are big dreams of expansion for Nuances self-care, loyal customers like Fawzi will continue to support them in Montreal.
Women in Engineering. Amelia Hart @ameliaohart / THE CONCORDIAN
Concordia students share their experiences as women in engineering
When Gloria Anastasopoulos was 10 years old, her school organized a ceramics painting day. Excited, the young girl found a motorcycle ceramic to paint and went to ask for the monitor’s permission.
“And she was like, ‘Why do you want to paint that?’” recalled Anastasopoulos. “And I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know, it’s cool!’ And she’s like, ‘Oh, leave it for one of the boys to paint. It’s a motorcycle, leave it, maybe one of the boys wants it.’”
After making sure nobody else took the ceramic, Anastasopoulos ended up being allowed to paint it. Now in her third year in mechanical engineering at Concordia, she still has the motorcycle, and she still carries the experience that came with it.
The first time she spoke with The Concordian, Anastasopoulos could not think on the spot of this story nor any specific instances where she felt singled out as a woman in engineering. She could only share a feeling that these moments had occurred.
Shortly after the interview however, she requested a second talk. This time, she came armed with a list of microaggressions and subtle sexism experienced by herself and her colleagues. “You get so used to seeing it, you don’t even notice,” she said.
Anastasopoulos is very involved in engineering societies and competitions at Concordia. She said that there are many women in these groups, but a lot of them fill management roles, while the men fill more of the design and programming roles.
She recalled the story of one of her friends, who joined a society in which most of the members were men. They sometimes met until late at night to work on projects, but her friend was uncomfortable staying out so late with men, and having to take the metro and walk home alone at night. So she left early.
“She always had this thought: ‘Do they think I’m not putting in enough effort, because I don’t stay as late as the men in the room?’” said Anastasopoulos. “But really, they just don’t understand and they don’t have to think about the kind of stuff that she had to think about.”
Another one of Anastasopoulos’ friends was passed up for a coveted and highly technical society position two years in a row. As far as Anastasopoulos is aware, the position has not been held by a woman in recent memory.
Despite this candidate’s qualifications, the role went to another candidate, who is male. “But the president told me, almost word for word, ‘I don’t want to take her because she speaks up a lot,’” shared Anastasopoulos. “This read to me like, ‘I don’t want to take her because she goes against what I say.’”
“I regret not saying something at the time,” said Anastasopoulos. “I guess you get so used to it.”
In 2010, faced by the low number of women in engineering, the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta created the 30 by 30 initiative. The goal of this plan was to ensure that 30 per cent of newly licensed engineers are women by 2030. This initiative was soon adopted throughout Canada.
Today, 20 per cent of newly licensed engineers in Quebec are women, and according to their 2022-24 strategic plan, Engineers Canada fears they will not reach their goal. This year at Concordia, 23 per cent of new undergraduates and 28 per cent of new graduate engineering students were women, reported the Office of Institutional Planning and Analysis.
The difficulties faced by women in engineering are the topic of Dr. Ann-Louise Howard’s thesis. Howard is an assistant professor in Concordia’s department of applied human sciences. She started her career as an engineer, but left because of the hostile work environment. Only when she started her research did she understand that her experience was tied with gender. On March 8, International Women’s Day, she gave a webinar about her research.
Howard’s research focuses on the female engineers who suffer in the workplace and on the microaggressions they experience. According to her, while there exists a lot of research on women in engineering, there is a gap when it comes to microaggressions.
“We talk so much about how women are welcome in engineering, there’s so much effort to showcase successful women in engineering,” said Howard. “But engineering is a very gendered profession, and microaggressions are manifestations of implicit bias.”
She also mentioned that people often fail to consider the experiences of women in engineering who are part of other marginalized communities, like women of colour or LGBTQ+ women, and the additional barriers and struggles they may face.
Anastasopoulos shared a variety of other instances where she felt her male peers did not respect the women around them. One of her colleagues told her that “girls can just go cry to the professor and get a better grade,” and that, as a man, he didn’t “have that luxury.” Another argued that the reason why Anastasopoulos had more connections than him on LinkedIn was because she is a woman.
“It’s just little stuff like that,” said Anastasopoulos. But it’s a trend.
Rania Alioueche, third-year mechanical engineering student and co-VP of the outreach team of Concordia’s Women in Engineering association, had similar experiences. Before starting at Concordia, she expected that 40 per cent of the students would be women.
“But actually, I was the only girl in my lab class,” she said. “There would be a whole auditorium of 160 people, and there would be only 30 girls, maximum.”
In group projects, the ideas of her male peers were often accepted without question, Alioueche said. “If I would propose something, they would have to double-check, ‘Let’s check with the teacher, let’s check online if it’s true.’ They would always doubt what I said.”
The worst comment she got was after an exam. “We received our grades back,” she recalled, “and I had a good grade, and the guy next to me during the lab said something along the line of: ‘You’re flirting with the TA, that’s why you got a good grade.’”
“All the women that I know in engineering experience this,” said Alioueche.
Alexandra Gagliano is a second-year mechanical engineering student. She noticed inequalities between the work of her male and female peers when it came to group projects.
This semester, for the first time since she started in engineering and after going through five different lab groups, Gagliano has only women in one of them. “Best lab group I’ve ever had,” she said. “Everyone does their work on time, communicates well, it’s so easy, simple.”
In her other lab groups, some of her male colleagues ignored her when it was time to write the report, and others simply did not show up to the lab.
“Maybe women are more conditioned to be responsible, so sometimes the work does fall on the woman in the group,” Gagliano said.
She also shared that making friends with the men in her program was very difficult. Many of her attempts at friendship ended when she rejected her male friends’ romantic advances.
“Sometimes, I feel a bit like an outsider if I’m the only girl in the group of like, six guys,” Gagliano said. “Sometimes it’s a bit difficult.”
Howard felt like all these examples could have been plucked from her research, as they were so similar to other women’s experiences in engineering.
“One of the things that I found was that women in engineering tough it out,” said Howard. “Part of that was, they disregard the price that they’re paying.”
These visible instances are only the tip of the iceberg, according to Howard’s research. Many more are just subtle enough to be felt but not recognized. But these small cuts add up.
Howard wondered what women internalize about themselves along the way: That they cannot be too bold? That they must become “one of the boys?” That they are not as talented as their male colleagues, and that the attention they receive is simply due to them being women?
“I feel a little alone, talking about this,” she said. “The dominant narrative is that we want women in engineering. ‘Here, look at these women who are successful in engineering,’ and they give all the credit in the world. But there’s stories that are conspicuously absent from that narrative.”
“People ask me why I did this research,” Howard said. “And I really never wanted to do this research. I wanted to be an engineer.”
Concordia’s involvement in the project remains uncertain
On Tuesday Feb. 21, Pascale Déry, Quebec Minister of Higher Education, announced the creation of an Observatory to research student mental health in higher education. The Observatory will partner with researchers and students in various disciplines. Quebec will invest $2.8 million over five years in the interdisciplinary project. The Observatory is part of the government’s Plan d’action sur la santé mentale étudiante en enseignement supérieur 2021-2026 (action plan for student mental health in higher education).
The research project will be co-directed by researchers from the Cégep de Jonquière and Université de Sherbrooke. The Observatory’s mandate will assess and monitor the state of mental health in higher education on a large scale. It will also link research to practice in the field by guiding educational institutions in the implementation of their mental health policies.
Scientific director of the Fonds de recherche du Québec en Santé, Carole Jabet, pointed out that the findings on the mental health of students were worrisome.
“We have talked about the pandemic, a health crisis that has affected all of us, but especially our students, and all this has definitely accentuated the problems of physical and mental health,” she said.
Jabet added that the Observatory wished to meet a great diversity of needs since any student in higher education is at risk of suffering from mental health issues.
“There is no correlation between mental health and the discipline in which one studies, the institution where one studies,” said Jabet. “Every young adult around us is likely to suffer from mental health issues.”
One of the cross-cutting objectives of the Observatory will be to train members of the student population to become mental health professionals. This idea fits in with one of the main goals of the Observatory, which is to decompartmentalize mental health research.
Neuroscience researcher Rémi Quirion said that despite the frequency of mental illnesses, they remain stigmatized.
“Mental illnesses are not rare. We estimate it touches 20 per cent, and in the student population it’s even 25 per cent,” said Quirion. “If you look around the room, one out of four people around you will suffer from a mental illness in their life.”
Concordia spokesperson Vannina Maestracci said that the involvement of the University in this project is still to be decided. “Concordia would certainly be willing to be involved but it is too early to say in what role,” said Maestracci in an email to The Concordian.
Concordia Stingers captain Olivia Hale lifting the Dr. Ed Enos Trophy and celebrating the RSEQ championship with her teammates. Maria Bouabdo/ The Concordian
The Stingers’ women’s hockey team is headed back to the U Sports National Championship
After a 4-1 victory against the Montreal Carabins in Game 3, the Concordia Stingers were crowned 2022-23 RSEQ champions on home ice for the second consecutive year. The defending national champs will also have a chance to two-peat at the U Sports National Championship.
This was an overall close series: the Stingers won Game 1 with a score of 2-1 at home while the Carabins took the 4-1 home win in Game 2, and Sunday’s victory earned the Stingers the Dr. Ed Enos Trophy.
Stingers forward Alexandra Boulanger opened the scoring around the midway mark of the first period. Forward Caroline Moquin-Joubert doubled their lead with five minutes remaining in the first period with a beautiful shorthanded breakaway goal.
The Stingers had to kill off two five-on-threes early on in the second period, which they did successfully, going seven for seven on the penalty kill in total.
“I think anytime you can have a penalty kill, and we block shots and we give that warrior mentality, it can be a momentum builder,” said Stingers head coach Julie Chu.
But she emphasized that their discipline has to be better to avoid overplaying players too early in the game.
Goaltender Alice Philbert also praised her teammates for their effort on the two five-on-threes.
“The girls on five-on-three were incredible in front of me, they blocked so many shots,” she said. “I think [during those two five-on-threes] I faced one shot.”
The lone goal in the second period came from Carabins forward Joannie Garand later in the period, cutting their deficit in half.
However, Stingers forward Rosalie Bégin-Cyr put the team up 3-1 about 10 minutes into the final frame. Moquin-Joubert later scored her second goal of the game on the empty net, securing the Stingers’ win and title as RSEQ champs.
“This [win] means a lot,” Chu said. “We’re a really talented team, but we also had to be really patient with ourselves throughout this entire series to make sure that we were developing to get to this point.”
She added that although the team was coming off a championship win last year for both the RSEQ and nationals, they had a lot of youth on the team after many players graduated last spring.
“So, in the fall, when it would’ve been easy to be maybe distracted with the fact that we weren’t perfect in our D-zone, our breakouts were more difficult, our players stuck with it and they trusted the process, and I think they’re getting rewarded for that process right now,” she concluded.
Philbert, who’s playing her last season at Concordia, said that winning the RSEQ championship for a second year in a row is an incredible feeling and that the team hopes to win the National Championship again, too.
“Obviously, I don’t want to finish with a loss, so I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen and we’ll do our best, we’re going to work hard,” she said.
The University of Montreal is hosting the National Championship, so it will be taking place at the CEPSUM arena from March 16-19. The schedule will be announced on March 12.
“We need to be confident,” said Philbert. “I think we have the team to win again this year, and if we’re confident and we play our game and we work hard, I think nothing can stop us.”
Concordia University's Sir George Williams Campus. CATHERINE REYNOLDS/The Concordian
Loyola campus’ future expansion sparks concerns for residents, faculty, and students
On Feb. 23, a panel of Concordia representatives and Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough councillors gathered at the Loyola Jesuit Hall and Conference Centre to reveal their master plan for the expansion of Concordia’s Loyola Campus to residents of the area, faculty members, and students alike.
This long-term project is aimed at enhancing campus infrastructure, interior, and exterior environments, as well as increasing mobility and the amount of green space available.
“We are back [in-person] and need more classrooms, labs, and spaces,” said Dominique Dumont, director of strategic planning and development at Concordia. She clarified that while the team working on this project “cannot [yet] provide answers about when and where” these additional spaces will be added, the master plan is intended to serve as a guide for future endeavours.
The master plan project first began in August 2020. “It’s been three years that we are in consultation with the city of Montreal,” said Marie-Claude Lavoie, associate vice-president of the facilities management department.
In the first stage, the team assessed the needs for the Loyola campus and reviewed municipal regulations. The second stage focused on outlining the project’s guidelines to preserve key heritage sites across campus. Currently, the team is halfway through the third phase. At this time, they are seeking feedback for their current campus development plans. The fourth and final stage will release a finalized development plan and outline the steps moving forward to enact the plan.
According to Rocio Carvajo Lucena, the project’s architect, the team aims to incorporate an indoor parking space for students, outdoor classrooms and fitness equipment, as well as more entry walkways for bikes and pedestrians. Project leaders are also working with key community members and upholding the University’s Indigenous Directions Action Plan by incorporating inclusive signage and planting Indigenous plants, as well as its Sustainability Action Plan through the inclusion of more green spaces, said Carvajo Lucena .
Nonetheless, NDG residents, Concordia students, and faculty members alike have expressed their criticisms of the project. During the question period, several residents raised their concerns about the expansion of the campus. Some were concerned that the expansion could potentially reduce street parking spots. Others were concerned about the potential for noise pollution caused by the construction in an otherwise quiet neighbourhood.
Others expressed their worries about the plan’s neglect for the Loyola daycare Centre de la Petite Enfance P’tits Profs. While the panel clarified that the daycare would not be expropriated, former Concordia student and communications advisor for the University Elena Raznovan expressed her disappointment for the lack of consultation with the daycare prior to the conference. The panel encourages all community members to provide their input via a survey they set up to complete the last part of phase three, which will remain open until March 31.
First screening of the mini web-series Léo au féminin
The mini web-series Léo au féminin premiered on Feb. 21 in a full room, brimming with excited people, at La Tulipe on Papineau Ave. The evening was dedicated to featuring the first four episodes of the ten-episode web series. The series centers around the tribulations, anxieties and health concerns of a young CEGEP student named Léo and her friends.
Co-director and screenwriter Éléonore Delvaux-Beaudoin recounted being inspired by her personal life to create this auto-fiction. She was studying in CEGEP when she pitched the idea as a short film to her friend and classmate Catherine Quesnel. The pair decided to turn it into a mini web-series, recruiting some of their classmates and friends in the process.
Screenshot Léo au Féminin
“We realized the strong link we had while writing,” said Quesnel. “It’s an auto-fiction we wrote together, but it’s mostly based on Éléonore’s life and I really immersed myself in her world.”
Delvaux-Beaudoin shared her experience of living with an invisible disability, something rarely portrayed in cinematography. She has several life-threatening food allergies and shared that, a few years ago, she almost died because of them.
Screenshot Léo au Féminin
“Catherine and I also wanted to show the mental pain that comes with these invisible disabilities,” said Delvaux-Beaudoin. “We don’t realize that people with these autoimmune diseases live in a state of constant fear: a fear of eating, touching, sharing, kissing.”
The subject was treated in a subtle way, which captured its complexity with finesse despite the episodes being short. Each episode contains a sequence focused on a meal, showing the anxiety that Léo experiences around food because of her allergies.
Screenshot Léo au Féminin
In addition to these explicit scenes, details that seem insignificant at first become more important when we notice the seriousness of the character’s allergies. Examples include when she has to remind her boyfriend to brush his teeth before kissing, or when she scrutinizes food labels.
The series also touches on queer relationships, open and non-monogamous relationships and love in all its forms. After being bombarded with classic rom-coms by Netflix during the Valentine’s Day season, this series created by young people for young people is a breath of fresh air with its very realistic and wholesome portrayal of relationships.
Screenshot Léo au Féminin
For co-producer Lu-Sergei Denaud, showing queer relationships and queer joy on screen was an important aim in the production. They pointed out that traditional TV in Quebec rarely portrays queer stories in a good light and that Léo au féminin aimed at showing both the complexity and beauty of queerness.
“I think that this series also serves to show that we are a more open generation, that we are freeing ourselves little by little from the heteronormative confines,” said Denaud. “I find that with Léo au féminin I can finally say, and I hope that our generation will be able to say, ‘finally, I see myself’”.
Screenshot Léo au Féminin
Despite the fast pace of the mini-series format, the scenes never seem forced. While featuring the usual topics found in coming-of-age dramas, this take on youth felt refreshing.
Set in Montreal with a cast of CEGEP students and created with a very minimal budget, the series gives a more realistic vision of transition into adulthood without falling into classic tropes of teen movies, all while maintaining a poetic fiber.
Léo au féminin delves into Gen-Z themes beyond traditional coming-of-age stories. Léo, for instance, spends a whole dinner explaining to an older person what the LGBTQ+ acronym means, has panic attacks in her workplace or even spends $300 to adopt a cat.
The production is now working on finding a platform to host the series which will come out in a few months. You can follow Léo au fémininhere.
Indigenous researchers blame the ongoing crisis on a lack of support for Indigenous communities
On Monday Feb. 14, Montrealers gathered at Cabot Square for a march in solidarity with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Trans and Two-Spirit People (MMIWG2ST+) held by the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal (NWSM). The vigil began at 6 p.m. with Indigenous activists, artists and community organizers speaking out against the violence inflicted on Indigenous people.
MMIWG2ST+ is a phenomenon across Canada (and more broadly across the Americas) of Indigenous women and persons of gender minorities going missing and being murdered. This feminicide crisis is understood by researchers as a consequence of colonialism and police inaction when it comes to Indigenous victims. It is estimated that Indigenous women in Canada are murdered at nearly seven times the rate of non-Indigenous women.
Nicole Janis Qavavauq-Bibeau, the research coordinator for the Iskweu project at NWSM, believes that these figures are much higher. Qavavauq-Bibeau’s research has found that the actual numbers of MMIWG2ST+ are four times higher than the RCMP estimate.
“When an Indigenous woman passes away, it is often ruled super quickly as a suicide or overdose,” said Qavavauq-Bibeau.
For Mohawk artist and activist Ellen Gabriel, this colonial vision of Indigenous women of all age groups comes from all layers of Canadian society. In a speech at the vigil, she mentioned how the Canadian government’s inaction regarding Indigenous people’s requests and the 231 Calls for Justice stemming from the National Inquiry’s Final Report into MMIWG2ST+ are the reasons why the current system is so reluctant to protect Indigenous women.
“When will you teach your children about the genocidal history in Canada, in Quebec, in all its provinces?” said Gabriel. “When is this going to happen? Because until this happens we are going to have vigils like this forever.”
Concordia’s Director of First Peoples Studies Catherine Kineweskwêw Richardson said this issue is on the minds of Indigenous scholars and professors at Concordia.
“In the scope of our program we educate students about the issue of MMIWG and I think we try to bring some issues in how the media talks about it,” said Richardson. “They never talk about who is killing these women.”
Richardson pointed out that the crisis is often framed as Indigenous women being vulnerable more so than focusing on the people perpetrating these crimes.
According to her, one of the ways Concordia could help Indigenous women is by creating more opportunities for Indigenous students with policies specifically designed for their needs.
Richardson’s research echoes the words of activists who argue that colonial violence stems from all institutions that were built on a colonial system, like the police, social services, as well as schools and universities.
“It’s a long term issue and if we don’t act to increase support for Indigenous students and Indigenous education, they’ll continue to fall off the edge,” said Richardson. “Like most universities, we at Concordia could be doing more to assist and uplift Indigenous students.”
Richardson pointed out that Indigenous communities, too, are finding their own solutions for educating youth.
“We don’t look to the University to do everything but we could certainly do more to help,” she said.
For Richardson, some policies that could be implemented to help Indigenous students include encouraging them to go into graduate studies, building student housing, facilitating people moving from Indigenous communities to the city to study, and overall educating people around Indigenous issues. However, these solutions are slow to implement and the current administration is ill-suited to support Indigenous students.
“I’ve stopped holding my breath,” said Richardson. “For every aspect of life at Concordia, they have to understand that Indigenous students have particular needs and we need to create opportunities.”
Tetiana Lazuk leads Ukrainian refugees in a dance-movement therapy session. Photo by Bogdan Lytvynenko/THE CONCORDIAN
As Ukraine enters the second year of war, Tetiana Lazuk uses dance-movement therapy to help refugees
One year after the beginning of the war, Ukrainian refugees in Montreal are working to heal from their difficult experiences and get settled in their new life. In the heart of the Mile End, the Ukrainian National Federation of Canada (UNF) offers wellness activities to help refugees find community through dance-movement therapy.
Tetiana Lazuk is a Ukrainian dance therapist and a scholar-in-residence at Concordia, and she leads dance-movement sessions at the UNF. During these classes (which are taught in Ukrainian), she helps refugees heal from their difficult experiences in the war through dance.
“It’s not only this psychological support, wellness,” she said, “but it’s also helping to connect people who have a lot in common, and helping them to find their place and to establish here in Canada.”
While the war has faded from public attention in the past few months, it is still very real for Ukrainians in Montreal and throughout the world.
“On Feb. 24, 2022, many people thought that Ukraine would cave within a few days, if not a few weeks,” said Michael Shwec, president of the Quebec Provincial Council of Ukrainian Canadian Congress. “We’re coming up to a year, right now, where the Ukrainian people are very resolute in their defense of their territory, their culture, their language.”
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress represents 1.4 million Ukrainians around Canada, according to their website. While they have supported the Ukrainian community from their beginnings, work has increased considerably in the last year.
“We need to help [displaced Ukrainians] land and be successful in Canada, for those who wish to stay,” said Shwec. “That means everything from housing to education, to employment, to have some sense of normalcy in their lives, and help them bridge that gap from Ukraine to here, as best as possible.”
This is exactly what Lazuck strives to do. She lived in Ukraine until 2009, when she moved to Canada to continue her studies in dance-movement therapy. She started working with Ukrainian refugees at the UNF in September.
Lazuk pointed out that her experience moving to Canada was very different from many refugees. She was prepared for her new life, for the changes it would bring, and for the challenges she would need to overcome. The refugees she works with did not get that preparation.
“These people were forced to leave their country, and many of them had excellent, great professions, perfect life conditions, and now they are forced to move to another country,” said Lazuk. “Many of them don’t speak English or French, so they need to learn, they need to adapt.”
The UNF’s aim is to provide refugees with the resources to do just that. The organization helps Ukrainians find a community and adjust to their new life in Canada.
According to Lazuk, specialized psychotherapy is important to help them process their experiences in the war. On the flip side, her dance-movement sessions help Ukrainians connect with their community and handle the hardships of leaving their homeland.
“They meet all together, they discuss what problems they’re facing, and how to get through this,” she said.
“The dance-movement therapy sessions provide something through the body that allows them to not only be in their head, but moving, connecting, and sometimes forgetting what they have in their head.”
Since last year, the Canadian government has implemented many measures to help Ukrainians coming into the country. In March 2022, the government created a new emergency travel visa for Ukrainians.
However, the war is not over, said Shwec. “As long as genocide continues in Ukraine, which it does, there’s never enough done. Enough will be when Russian forces are out of Ukraine and the genocide stops,” he said.
“Before our lives, livestreamed, is a genocide happening in what has been a very peaceful European country. The onus is on every single student to reflect on what is actually happening, and to make sure that you take a stand, and you defend the values that you believe in.”
The last time Lazuk visited her home land was in November 2021, to see her and her husband’s families — a few months before the beginning of the war. She looks forward to the next time she can visit her country, hopefully soon.
“We all hope that finally, peace comes to Ukraine, and we will be able to visit our family and help in rebuilding our country,” she said.
“Here in Canada, life continues. We have plans, we continue working. Dancing.”
If jev. was a stock, now would be the time to invest
Since the beginning of the year, jev. has been a name on the lips of most underground rap fanatics . From having one of his songs at the number one spot of the Top 50 US Viral Songs to now having over 700,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, it’s safe to say that Jephté Kweto, A.K.A. jev., has been blowing up over the past few weeks.
The African-born rapper spent the majority of his life in Africa, growing up in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa before moving to Canada with his family in late 2019. jev. has been making music since 2009, but it’s only in 2015 that the moniker jev. took form. Despite the colder weather, the move to Canada was actually beneficial for the young rapper
“You find yourself a lot in the house so it gives you time to be creative and come up with ideas, so for me it worked out well especially during the pandemic,” he said.
For those who don’t know jev. (yet) the 22-year-old rapper is an up-and-coming figure in the new generation of young rappers influenced by both old school hip hop and the rap scene from the 2010s. In this era where the boom bap drums and chopped-up soul samples are making a comeback, jev. thrives on this type of instrumental with his varied flows, brilliant wordplay and energetic delivery. You can hear the influence of some of the greats in his music: artists ranging from the likes of Nas to Joey Bada$$ and Kendrick Lamar are only a few inspirations that can be heard on his tracks.
Even before coming to Canada, jev. had already started to work on his last project the color grey. which released in late December 2022. While most of the songs came together over the pandemic, he first started mastering his craft in 2018, recording “aitd – demo,” the final track, on his phone.
jev. has been turning a lot of heads recently, which can mostly be attributed to all the love his song “where’s the confetti?” is receiving. As of now, the song has been streamed nearly 2.8 million times on Spotify since its release in July 2022.
“From 0 to 100,000 was probably the hardest, but from the 100,000 to a million was easy as I think it was two weeks[…] But 0 to 100,000 was like three or four months. It’s exponential growth,” he said.
“where’s the confetti?” is a hookless song that sees jev. celebrate. Once he starts rapping, he never stops, laying clever one-liners after another over a simple drum beat and looped sample. In the past couple of weeks, this track has been circulating everywhere. Whether on TikTok, Instagram, or in various Spotify playlists, this massive exposure helped the song claim the number one spot of the Viral 50 – USA playlist on Spotify.
“I didn’t know how to react at the time, I was kind of in shock, but I’m super grateful for everybody that has played it and added it to their playlists and everything. It’s crazy,” he said.
With all the success he’s having, you may think that jev. gets help from other people or works with a team, right? Well, you would be wrong. Aside from working with certain producers on his songs, everything else he does, he does it alone. From promoting his songs on his different social media accounts, to reaching out to brands, to creating his songs, he does it all by himself.
jev. is his own team, so much so that he has started his own brand: LONER inc., a project that allows jev. to have full creative control of what he does, in every sphere.
“LONER inc. was gonna be this umbrella of me just being as creative as possible. Movies, music videos, TV, film, fashion, clothing, music, and music is the main thing right now, that’s where it was born from,” he said.
Despite being fully in charge of his music career, jev. is much busier than that. Not only is he a full-time student, currently studying marketing at Carleton University in Ottawa, but he works part-time at Staples.
With his combination of skill and a tremendous amount of talent, mixed with a balanced work ethic and a burning passion for music, be on the lookout for jev. as he might be the next big name in rap you wish you had discovered earlier.
On Feb. 6, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck northwestern Syria and southern Turkey. On Monday, rescue and recovery efforts were still bubbling when a separate 6.3-6.4 magnitude earthquake occurred
“Their building collapsed in the first earthquake… help didn’t get there for three days. When [it did], they were already gone,” said Ari Inceer, a Turkish student studying at Concordia who lost one of her childhood friends. Inceer is from Kahramanmaraş, a city hard-hit by the disaster.
Over the past two weeks, the death toll has climbed to over 46,000. Around the border between Turkey and Syria, there is a convergence of tectonic plates that makes the area seismologically vulnerable. Millions are displaced.
“I don’t know if they were alive [or died instantly]. I don’t know if they called for help,” said Inceer, referring to her friend.
“I haven’t seen my brother, sister, mother [in years]… almost losing them, even just one of them, is so scary,” said Inceer. At a cousin’s home in Istanbul (further from the earthquake’s epicenter) her family waits for answers. Their home in Kahramanmaraş has not collapsed, but it may be unstable.
Sarah Dadouche, a Syrian student, described parents that are unable to reach dead or trapped children. “People are going crazy…They know they’re dead, but…they want to take them and bury them with their own hands.” Dadouche’s family is physically okay. “They were very shaken. They [fled onto] the streets…I was thinking, ‘this is down in the south in [Damascus].’ If you go up to the north, it’s crazy.”
International sanctions have made getting aid to Syria difficult. “Because of the sanctions… no one [cares] about us,” said Dadouche. “My mind is with my parents, my mind is with my people… I don’t feel like I deserve to be here.”
“Sometimes you need to be like an actor [when] coming to class and deliver the content to the best of your ability; irrespective of what you feel,” said a Turkish professor at Concordia who wished to remain anonymous. “You need to go on and start the show.”
Furkan Göçmez is another Turkish student. From Malatya, his home has been destroyed. “I don’t know how long they’re going to be on the streets. My family just became homeless, in like two minutes,” he said.
“I’m kind of pinching myself like, ‘oh, is this really happening?’” said Göçmez. While fleeing their building, his mother fell and broke her nose. “I don’t know where to call home. If I decide to go now, where would I go?”
While some students report professors being insensitive to their experiences, others feel supported.
Inceer said, “All of [my teachers] separately asked if I needed anything from them personally.”
Karam Helou is the internal vice-president of the Syrian Student Association at Concordia (SSA). “[One professor from JMSB] reached out to me on the day of the earthquake. She made sure that my family was okay. I thought that was really sweet of her,” he said.
On Feb. 7, the International Students Office (ISO) at Concordia sent an email to members of the Syrian and Turkish community offering support. “We are devastated to hear of the earthquakes in Syria and Turkey this week. I would like to personally let you know that we are thinking of you and your families,” wrote Kelly Collins, manager of the ISO. The email contained links to various University resources.
From international students to Quebec residents, a number of University members received the email, including Inceer. Göçmez, Helou, and Dadouche are among students who reported not receiving the ISO’s message.
Dadouche feels that the University was very outspoken when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. “[It] was like, ‘the news that is happening in Ukraine is a lot on all of us, so take all the time you need and these are the mental resources that you may need.’” Dadouche does not feel the same message was put out by Concordia after the earthquake. “I just keep thinking, are we not human? Do we not matter?”
“The notice for students was posted on the Student Hub [on Feb. 13] when we realized this was not done [on Feb. 10] which was an oversight on our part,” said Concordia spokesperson Vannina Mestracci.
“I don’t think we’re waiting for any sort of statements from [President Carr]… we’ve [gotten] used to it,” said a Syrian student studying at JMSB. “We got used to being left out,” they added.
“Hearing the voice of the administration a little bit louder would be helpful. Helpful to whom? Helpful to us, to the people here [in Montreal]. But hearing that, [will it] do anything to the people who simply perished under concrete over there?” said the anonymous professor mentioned earlier. “From a PR point of view, this is important. I wish there was a louder and more compassionate voice from the administration.”
Tuana Bıçakcı is a Turkish student who has been a part of fundraising efforts on campus. “The lack of acknowledgement and support from the University is a little sad…It is really heartbreaking and scary to be so far away from your loved ones when a tragedy like this happens… we could have been so grateful if the University supported us a little more.”
Hindered by international sanctions, getting aid to Syria has been tough. “[Syrians are] human just as much as the Turkish people, just as much as the Ukrainian people,” said Dadouche. “I think the bare minimum [that] the dean or the president or any professor can do is just raise awareness for a couple of minutes. For example, at the beginning of the class.”
Inceer has felt differently. “I actually didn’t pay attention to [the University’s acknowledgement]… I had other worries.” She has been preoccupied with her family feeling secure again. “I’m just trying to find work and help my family…They left everything they own…it keeps me up [at night] and I just want to be able to help them and send money to them. That’s my main focus right now.”
Göçmez also has finances on his mind. “Concordia could open up bursaries for people who are impacted by these events…My family lost their house. My father’s business has stopped there. I will be having financial hardships,” expressed Göçmez.
Combating feelings of helplessness, Göçmez and Inceer volunteered at the Turkish Student Association’s (TSA) donation site. The site was on the seventh floor of the Hall Buildingfrom Feb. 7-10. While the TSA is no longer taking material donations, they are still taking monetary donations.
“I focus on what I can control and I feel like this is something I have to do,” said Mert Kaan Kaseler, co-president of the TSA. From sanitary pads to flashlights, the collected materials were swiftly flown to Turkey.
Turkish Student Association’s donation site in the Hall building. Photo by Tristan McKenna
Tolga Osmancik is a Turkish student heavily involved with the fundraising efforts. “This can happen to anyone in any country. When something like this happens, we should remember that we are human beings,” he said.
On Feb. 13, the SSA had an event in the Hall Buildingas well. In order to support the SSA, you can follow them online.
Jana Noufal Al-Atassi is the SSA’s vice-president of finance. “It would be great if more people talked about what’s happening and what’s been happening even before the earthquake.” She discussed how the world let politics block humanitarian hurdles. “You have to keep in mind [that Syrians are] not numbers. These are humans that are dying.”
“There’s one difference between what’s happening in Turkey and Syria… the sanctions placed on Syria,” said Helou.
“If certain powers wanted to send aid to Syria, they could have,”
Said Talal Akkad, A Syrian Student.
Inceer discussed how Turkey could have been better prepared. “It’s a big earthquake. Three of them happened on the same day… another one happened two weeks after…[but] this shouldn’t have been the result,” she said.
When growing up, Inceer would hear discussions about her area (atop the East Anatolian Fault) being overdue for an earthquake. She is perplexed at how Turkey was unprepared. “You think [the overdue earthquake] is a myth because you trust that the system knows better…when it actually happens, you feel so helpless because it’s the system… you by yourself can’t change the system.”
Learn about the secret to growing healthy cut flowers
During the month of August, Au Beau Pré is a sight to see. Over 300 varieties of Dahlias are in full bloom. They come in every shape, size, colour and texture that one could only dream about. This flower field gives visitors the option to come and cut their own flowers to take home. Walking through the rows of the field, it could be hard deciding which Dahlias to add to your bouquet.
The methods of production for flowers have always involved the use of pesticides, which in turn harm the people that produce them. 2,000 Canadian farms are trying to find better solutions to produce them organically, without pesticides. The Slow Flower Movement (SFM) is one of those remedies in terms of how farms treat their soil.
According to Flowers Canada Growers, there are over 1,600 flower producers in Canada. Flower farms cover over 75 million square feet of land combined. Among these flower producers is Sarah Beaupré Quenneville, a young entrepreneur heading her family’s beloved flower farm. Au Beau Pré flower farm sits in Saint Anicet, also known as “Quebec Florida” for its higher humid temperatures than the rest of the province. Au Beau Pré implements the SFM.
The secret to success for this flower farm is in their soil. “For the soil, we put compost every year or every two years depending on the crop,” Quenneville explained.
According toArchitectural Digest, the Slow Flowers Movement refers to the methodical preparation of soil before a seed is even planted. Farms across Quebec are slowly adopting this movement, like The Enfants Sauvages, among others.
Before Quenneville took on her family’s farm, her parents Roger and Lilianne were in charge and adopted the SFM. They started the Au Beau Pré farm back in 2007.
Lillian Quenneville cutting off the roots of the dahlia bulbs Dalia Nardolillo/ THE CONCORDIAN
“This is my parent’s project. They were selling Dahlia flower bulbs for years,” Quenneville said. “Before, they specialized in wheat production and made grain based products.”
Growing up, Quenneville had no interest in the agricultural sector and she didn’t want to be as involved in the farm.
“I saw my dad working hours and hours on end, with no days off,” Quenneville recalled.
With a family of her own, Quenneville explained that she didn’t want her children to experience the same memories she had as a child.
Quenneville studied communications during her undergrad and worked in media for a couple of years.Though she would sometimes help, Quenneville never envisioned the farm as a potential career opportunity.
“With each year that passed, my parents kept on asking me, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to do anything with the land?’” Quenneville recalled. “I proceeded to telling them, ‘No it’s not my thing, it’s maybe yours but not mine.’”
However, one day her mother told her about the endless possibilities of utilizing cut flowers. A cut flower is a bud or a flower that is cut from its bearing plant. Customers usually opt to buy cut flowers solely for decorative purposes, such as a bouquet.
According to Slow Living LDN, the SFM aims to not only have a better understanding of the soil before a flower is planted but also a more mindful consumption of how they’re cut.
Dahlia Flowers in the summer Dalia Nardolillo/THE CONCORDIAN
A TURNING POINT –
“We discovered I had a certain talent with selling flowers. I always helped my parents during the summer. My parents always said, ‘You’re good with the flowers,’” Quenneville recalled. During the times where she couldn’t be as involved in the field, she would help her parents with the website and the online selling of the products. “My parents are not really good with selling their stuff online, they’re good producers but not very good sellers.”
For newer flower producers like Quenneville, ressources and helpful guides are always available. At Flower Canada Growers in Toronto, Pest Control specialist Cary Gates explains that the SFM may work for some flower farms but not all.
“I don’t know if I see a lot of farms embracing that kind of approach,” Gates explained. “I am supportive of it, I just don’t know logistically if it is super functional, I see it for smaller acreages as being very achievable.”
Smaller farms like Au Beau Pré implement the utmost care into the soil before the Dahlia flower bulbs are even planted. “I really like the focus that farmers put into soil health,” Gates said. The care that is put into the soil equates to better quality flowers.
Quality control is also very important to the family. Roger and Lilianne make sure that the Dahlia flower bulbs don’t have any illnesses; however, sometimes unpredictable things can happen.
“One year we lost 75 per cent of our bulbs, we didn’t know exactly what happened in the fridge but they all rotted. I tell our customers I am not selling ‘Post-Its,’ we are selling living things and sometimes things like that can happen,” Quenneville recalled.
With Quenneville taking the reins on her parent’s farm in 2019 came its problems. “The first challenge I really faced was that I didn’t know how to produce flowers,” Quenneville said.
As the years progressed, Quenneville took more of an interest in the cut flowers business and became a project that she eventually took on. Quenneville explained that at Au Beau Pré, they sell flowers when they are cut from the stem itself. When guests come to visit the field in the month of August, they pay per flower stem.
With the help of various workshops through an American cut flower guru called Floret Flowers, Quenneville learnt the ins and outs of how to produce cut flowers.
Learning how to produce cut flowers with Floret Flowers also taught Quenneville another important lesson of the SFM: how to produce flowers at the most optimal time.
Au Beau Pré tries to keep up with business year-round. The winter season preparations start in October, right at the first freeze.
“We do some chores with an old tractor, but most of the time we work the soil manually. This way we don’t mess with the soil structure too much and we can start working in the field faster in the spring,” Quenneville said.
LOOKING AT OTHER PROVINCES –
One of the ways floral producers band together is through flower associations to help each other learn about sustainable ways of production.The Flowers Canada Growers Association (FCGA) has members all over Canada, including Bailey Dueker, owner of The Boondock Flower Farm in Saskatoon.
Dueker got into the business by accident, she recounted. “This will be my fourth season growing in 2023. In the spring of 2019 I was sick of Facebook so I joined Instagram. I wanted to see flowers in my recommended page, so I started to follow all these flower farmers,” Dueker said.
Seeing the flower farmer feeds inspired her to get into the field and she did not return to her regular job following her maternity leave. During the fall of 2019, Dueker did what she called a “soft-launch.” She acquired all the sunflowers and zinnias from her garden. Over the winter she spent her time buying seeds. “You really don’t know how much you don’t know until you get into it,” Dueker explained.
Across Canada, flower farms are underestimated in terms of the leg work that it takes to produce. According to a Chatelaine article on the subject flowers have brought in an estimated $158 million in profit in 2021.
FCGA represents floral producers all over Canada. Their members across Canada include greenhouse growers, distributors and importers/exporters all dealing with cut flowers, potted plants, bedding plants, cut greens and specialty suppliers and services to the industry.
Dueker explained that the main goal of being a part of the FCGA is providing more knowledge about the floral industry to others in the country. When you have a question that needs to be answered, there’s always someone there to help. “Connecting and marketing with other growers is the main idea of the association,” Dueker said.
Dueker also explained that there is a Facebook group for the association where members can connect with a community of flower growers.
According to Deuker, the future of cut flowers lies with the grassroots movement, which has a similar idea to the Slow Flowers movement. “I see a lot of people getting out of it in a couple of years because they come to realize that you have to do quite a bit of an investment to make it a living,” Dueker explained. Dueker has seen within the industry that perhaps selling to florists is maybe the way to go.
Roger Quenneville preparing the Dahlia flower bulbs for winter at Au Beau Pré Dalia Nardolillo/THE CONCORDIAN
FUTURE OF THE AU BEAU PRÉ FLOWER FIELD –
As the farm plans for the future, Quenneville explained that the future lies within the flowers themselves. “I really want to try to make products from the flowers themselves. We worked a lot from the dried flowers and we liked working with them.”
Working with the dried flowers over the past summer was a trial and error process. We weren’t quite there in terms of the final product with the dried flower bouquets,” Quenneville recounted.
Before perfecting any sort of dried flower she wants to master the production of them.
“We try different things, of course our Dahlia bulbs are our most popular product. We try to keep the cut flowers during the summer. This year was the first time that we tried the tulips but I don’t want to get into making my own seeds because that’s its own production.”
Quenneville believes that the future of her business lies with online sales through her website. While visitors travel to Saint Anicet during the summer to get the cut flowers from the farm, Quenneville wants to have flower-based products that she can sell year-round to customers.
The cut flower industry is always changing and florists are always trying to adapt, whether that is in the different dried flower products or brushing up on their knowledge of how to better treat their soil. Gates explained that the future of the cut flowers isn’t going anywhere for now. “I see the cut flower industry as pretty stable, I don’t know if I see it expanding exponentially like other ornamental commodities grow.”
