Angela Carter
Communicating to break down barriers
Angela Carter did not know Georgina (Vivi) Leimonis, the 23-year-old woman who was shot dead by a nervous robber in a downtown café one spring evening in 1994, but she grieved for the woman and her family. She also shared the anguish of black Torontonians who felt put under a spotlight, because the assailant was a young black man and Leimonis a young white woman. “That was the first time I understood what it was like to bear the weight of race on your shoulders,” says Angela.
Leimonis’ shooting caused an unprecedented uproar in Toronto. Canadians flooded talk shows calling for tougher gun laws and the return of capital punishment. “The media was relentless. I felt every single person looking at me, blaming blacks. I said there must be something we can do.”
A former sports reporter and newspaper editor from Barbados who now runs her own communications consulting firm, Angela decided she would reach out to at-risk black youth. A volunteer at the United Achievers Community Services in the 1990′s she led a youth group, giving young blacks a platform to air their frustrations and talk about their anger. She brought speakers to the club, held discussion sessions, showed movies that imitated and misrepresented life. She was determined to make a difference in the lives of black youth and importantly to help steer them away from a life of crime.
“The other day I saw one of the young people who used to always fight with me. She was going to York University and I felt so proud of her. She remembered me and I thought there is someone I probably had an impact on,” says Angela.
Angela’s leadership did not start in Canada. She was the first female to sit on the executive committee of the Barbados Rifle and Pistol Federation. A founding member of the Barbados Association of Journalists, she was its first female treasurer. She also broke down barriers in the male dominated sports reporting field in Barbados, eventually becoming editor at the popular island newspaper, The Nation, where she worked from 1979 to 1989.
In 1991, she joined the United Achievers Community Services, taking on her first board position in Canada. Since then this mother of two has shared her communications and leadership skills with The United Way, Junior Achievement Canada, Correctional Services Canada, York University’s Alumni Mentoring Program, the Brampton Board of Trade, Rapport Youth and others.
A manager at the CIBC from 1998 to 2002, Angela says her corporate and volunteer experiences in Toronto have brought her a deeper understanding of what is required of leaders in a multi-cultural society. “I have learnt not to measure people by my own standards, but to listen, to be open to others and not to jump too fast to judge someone else.”
She says people wanting to take on leadership roles in society should always remember diversity lies even within groups of people that come from the same country. “Even though people come from similar backgrounds and have similar goals their perspectives are not necessarily the same. Some experience that is driving them can be totally, opposite to what you expect,” she says.
Having begun her volunteerism in Canada around black youth issues, today Angela uses her communications expertise to help people from a multiplicity of ethnic backgrounds. Recently she assisted Brampton’s Telecare Distress Centre, a 24-hour telephone support operation expand its services. The centre, which helps people cope with loneliness, abuse, job loss, anger, stress, suicide and more, now provides support lines in a number of languages including Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese.
Her latest assignment takes her to India where she will teach communications to high school students. From there, Angela plans to take her communications and leadership skills to the Caribbean, Africa and beyond in her determination to make a difference in people’s lives at home and abroad.
Angela Carter participated in the 2004-2005 Leaders for Change program.
