UPDATED STORY

The Federation of African Canadian Economics (FACE), a coalition of Black-led organizations dedicated to stimulating economic growth and creating “generational wealth” for Canadians of African descent, has already provided loans totalling more than $20 million.

And so far, it has approved more than $30 million in loans.

This was disclosed by Tiffany Callender, CEO of FACE, at the coalition’s recent anniversary celebration held in Toronto.

Speaking about the work of the coalition since it was got together in 2021, Callender noted that FACE started as a response “to what we saw happening in our community.

“The pandemic had struck. We were all in our homes and as community workers do, we were looking at the government and

thinking what was going to be rolled out to our communities.

She noted that one of the programs introduced by the federal government was the Canadian Emergency Response Benefits but she said that “this was not able to support many of our Black entrepreneurs.

“ So we had a conversation with our government … we needed a different response for Black entrepreneurs not directly related to the pandemic but as a result of long-standing issues in terms of access to capital development resources.

“And a $160-milion loan fund was set up,” she said.

FACE was a major supporter of IMPACT Awards 2022.