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, held a dinner in Toronto on the weekend to celebrate its first anniversary.

At the dinner, Tiffany Callender, CEO of FACE, spoke of the work of the coalition since it was launched in 2021.

She 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.

She noted that the fund has already distributed in excess of $20 million dollars.

FACE was a major supporter of IMPACT Awards 2022.