Creating Space for Conversation about Black Entrepreneurs and Mental Health
Dr Lisa Ndejuru, Affiliate Professor at Concordia University
Dr Marie-Jolie Rwigema, Assistant Professor at Concordia University
What are the main mental health challenges Black entrepreneurs face? That’s the question Dr. Lisa Ndejuru, an affiliate professor at the Quebec Regional Hub of the Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (Q-BEKH) at Concordia University, set out to answer. As the body of research around the experience of Black entrepreneurs in Canada continues to grow, this is just one of the many areas still shrouded in mystery and misunderstanding. Along with her research partner Marie-Jolie Rwigema, a fellow assistant professor at Concordia University, she’s on a mission to shed light on this topic.
“When we spoke to other groups, other incubators, we found out that stress or mental health was very, very prevalent,” Dr. Ndejuru says. “We didn't find a lot of specific research about that. So what we wanted to do is to see what was already available. Sometimes people know a lot more than what they think they know. So, what tools and knowledge do our community organizations and business coaches already leverage towards these challenges and what challenges are faced when using the tools they use? And then, can we adapt or co-design some things to address any gaps?”
Data about Black Canadian entrepreneurs and mental health is scarce. However, a survey of 1,500 small business owners across Canada conducted by BDC, Canada’s business development bank, provides insight. More than half said inflation was a “source of stress” and work/life balance had become a concern. Still, only one quarter of entrepreneurs over the age of 45 sought professional mental health support in 2022. Half of entrepreneurs under the age of 45 sought help, reinforcing the need for conversations around prioritizing mental health. The research of Dr. Ndejuru is funded by the Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub, with the idea of validating, adopting, and sharing the entrepreneur edition of the Black Collective Care Circles, creating a safe space for entrepreneurs to have these important conversations. Dr. Ndejuru had already developed the concept of care circles through her work with the Black Healing Centre.
“These were circles, sort of community care circles, where we would work with people over a period of time,” she says. The idea of the collective care circles was developed in the wake of George Floyd’s May 2020 murder. The idea was for a culturally competent, Black led, multilingual support group for the Black community. The care circles were meant to be a weekly space for caring, support and belonging, with a focus on deep listening, storytelling, and communal care. Dr. Ndejuru envisioned the circles as a way to help manage anxiety, depression and trauma. “It was something accessible, it was online, and it was something where people could, once they close the computer, they can go back to their individual lives. They have a place where people come together and it's not about the hardness all around,” she says. “The second one was about healing trauma. It was about dealing specifically with difficult stories that need their own time – they can't be rushed. They need to be metabolized, in their own rhythm. Often these are things don't have a space in our day to day.”
Dr. Ndejuru says they started with the women's circle, continued with the men's circle, and then came the Healing Trauma group, which led to the Healing Our Stories retreat. Once they realized the virtual space was not sufficient to engage with some of the more difficult pieces, they moved to in-person. “One of the people who were in the circles came to me and they were working with an organization in Montreal north and we're thinking that it would be a good idea to offer these to the community of young entrepreneurs.”
Now, the hope is creating these community care circles will help create a better understanding of the challenges entrepreneurs face across the ecosystem, Dr. Ndejuru explains. “That journey is demanding, and you come up against pretty much every challenge that you held, and then there is all of the other ways in which entrepreneurship can be challenging for the person as a person. It's hard to go out there and be visible, sell a product or service when there are all kinds of things that are already weighing on people.”
Understanding of limitations, common themes and tools that can be proposed is the kind of insight Dr. Ndejuru hopes to gain as she embarks on this research journey. She says preliminary research indicates there isn’t enough of an understanding about this Black population. “There's huge room for improvement,” she says. “I don't know if people are looking at the well-being of individual participants and how they can be supported better and how the coaches can be supported better in doing their work.” Conversations with the Care Circles will continue over the next little while. The hope is to share the findings sometime in 2025.