FREEDOMSCHOOL – Toronto is a youth and parent driven initiative that intervenes to fight against anti-Black racism in the school system and to creative educational alternatives for Black children. We run a three week program for children aged four to twelve, a Saturday school program, curriculum fairs, students conference, and training programs to engage youth in Black liberatory education. We also do research on Black liberatory education and participate in campaigns to create systemic change.
FreedomSchool was created to respond to a lack of humanizing, self-affirming, queer positive educational opportunities for Black children in the GTA. Freedom school provides alternative settings for parents to do not feel that our children are being taught self-love, and a passion for justice and liberation through their formal education. Our programs are designed to teach children about Black Canadian and diasporic histories of resistance and to engage children in political resistance to anti-Black racism and state violence through a trans-feminist lens.
We teach children that: your Black life matters and you must demonstrate to your peers that their Black lives matter by protecting their dignity. Our children learn the things you didn’t learn in school: The Movement for Black lives, Marie Joseph Angelique, Marsha P. Johnson and the Stonewall Riots, the Memphis garbage strikes, Nanny Maroon and the Maroons in Canada, The Bussa Revolution in Barbados, The Haitian Revolution, Soweto Uprisings. These topics are engaged through child friendly resources like claymation, video animation, augmented realities etc.