Haitian Student Association of Concordia

The Haitian Students’ Association of Concordia (HSAC) held a thrift shop event in the atrium of Concordia University’s Webster Library on Feb. 19.

HSAC members sold donated clothes to Concordia students and raised almost $600 for the Institution Mixte les Frères Nau de Bayonnais, a school in Gonaïve, Haiti, where Concordia students teach STEM classes every summer with student organization Katalis.

“We collected clothes and we’re reselling them at really affordable prices so that people can find something nice and wear it,” said Harvin Hilaire, president of HSAC, “but at the same time we’re using the money to help a good cause in Haiti.”

As students around him browsed through the racks and stacks of donated clothes, Hilaire explained that HSAC’s goal is to represent Concordia’s Haitian students and to provide a space where they can get together to talk.

He explained that HSAC regularly organizes events where Haitian students can meet, such as documentary screenings and icebreaker evenings. Hilaire also said the thrift shop event was part of HSAC’s push to go beyond Concordia and Montreal by helping people in Haiti as well.

“We’re in a university where there’s a lot of diversity, so sometimes people can get lost in it,” Hilaire said. “We have our office, suite K-202 at 2150 Bishop St., and we have get-togethers where people can come and talk. We make it homey for them.”

The student group was officialized in 2018 with the help of former HSAC president Andrew Denis after a 10-year hiatus.

“When I joined as VP External last year, I realized the organization had just started and it was really small, so it really became a mission of trying to get as many people to join the Concordian Haitian community,” Hilaire said.

The event was also an opportunity for members of the association to get signatures for a petition attempting to reinstate a Haitian history class that was removed from Concordia’s course calendar. Many of the students who attended the thrift shop added their names to the petition, which now has 100 signatures.

“We’re trying to show the university that we have a body of students who are interested in taking this class,” said Denis, who was helping at the event. “We want it to be re-added into the system and we want it to be taught by a person of colour or a Haitian individual.”

Hilaire said that HSAC is organizing four more events before the end of the year, including the Paint and Sip event, a collaboration between several black student associations at Concordia, which took place on Feb. 21.

“After that, we will be having our traditional Haitian drum event, called Tam Tam in Creole,” Hilaire said. He also mentioned there will be an exclusive, invite-only event to look out for, as well as HSAC elections before the end of the year.

Hilaire said that HSAC is also working on obtaining a scholarship for Haitian students at Concordia, but that it is still in early stages.

Photos by Clara Gepner

The Haitian Student Association of Concordia partnered up with mental health groups to destigmatize mental illness in BIPOC communities.

On Nov. 8, the Haitian Student Association of Concordia collaborated with My Mental Health Matters and Stronger than Stigma to host an open discussion about mental health in Black, Indigenous, People of Colour communities (BIPOC) through an event called “It’s Not All In Your Head.”

“We’re broadcasting the message that anyone struggling, both emotionally or physically, isn’t alone,” said Stronger than Stigma President, Jillian Caplan. “That’s so important, especially in a high stress, academic environment. A dynamic conversation is a key component of mental health advocacy, so the best way to tackle the stigma surrounding mental illness is to talk about it.”

Three speakers candidly shared their struggle with mental health as part of the Stronger Stories segment of the event.

Jean Felando Noël, one of the speakers, said the event gave him the opportunity to be a voice for people who share his identity, by being a man, and by being someone from the Haitian community.

“I feel like some people kind of stay in the dark about how they feel, until they have somebody who steps forward and shares their story with others,” said Noël. “It shows them that it’s okay to speak, it’s okay to force yourself – so I honestly wanted to be here to be a voice [for] people; to be the voice of others who probably don’t have the chance of talking.”

Annick Maugile Flavien, the founding coordinator for the Black Perspective Initiative and co-moderator of the conversation, said it’s especially important to talk about mental health and illness in communities who tend to avoid acknowledging it.

In some racialized communities, “mental health is stigmatized in ways that are beyond just our family and friend dynamics, but also rooted in deeper colonial histories, and ideas of race, and religion-all of these things make for a very complicated individual life that is tied to a larger history,” said Maugile Flavien.

Off-campus mental health resources for BIPOC community

You can find a list of BIPOC mental health professionals here
There is an ongoing list of Black mental health professionals you can access here
My Mental Health Matters

Off-campus mental health resources

Argyle Institute
The Emotional Mental Health Centre CBT Clinic
The Montreal Therapy Centre

On-campus resources

Zen Dens
Concordia Students’ Nightline
Empower Me
Stronger than Stigma

“I really wanted to get a sense of what the emotional climate is with students at Concordia right now, and learn from their wisdom, and learn from their stories and be sensitized to what’s happening in people’s daily lives, in faces that we see everyday,” said Maugile Flavien.

Photo by Cecilia Piga