What We Do
Our company Ògo Tàwa Inc. helps gifted, underrepresented, underserved, and underemployed artists of African descent apply their artistic talents to enhance their financial security and provide better lives for themselves, their communities, and their families. We help Black artists reach North American consumers, with their music, theatre, film, visual art, and public art. We also contribute to creating more equitable societies.
Creative artistic expressions in performance art, visual art, and public art in our public spaces enable Black communities to take charge of their narrative. The portrayal of innovative talent by individuals of African descent fosters belonging, advances inclusion, reduces the trauma of racism, and inspires non-Black communities to value Black people’s contributions to society.
Creative Arts that We Amplify
Visual & Digital Arts
- We will sell affordable and high-quality contemporary art by gifted artists of African descent.
Dance
- We promote dancers around the world, who are advancing Black Lives Matter by sharing their talents via our #BLM Global Dance Challenge.
Music
- We seek to raise the profile of contemporary Black musicians in Canada by showcasing the diversity of their talents along with anthems for the Black Lives Matter Movement.
Community & Events
- We contribute to creating a more equitable Canada by fundraising for the Black Heroes Garden, commemorating Black achievement and the Black Lives Matter global movement. Art, dance, music, and song are a vital part of shaping our communities. They are not only forms of recreation and entertainment. These creative mediums facilitate teaching, promote social values, mark major life milestones or rites, and bring communities together to celebrate special events and festivities.
Our Work Builds Community and Solidarity
The phrase “Ògo Tàwa” means Our Pride, in the Yoruba language of the Yoruba people from Nigeria. We all have a drop of Africa in us. There is latent strength, untapped and not commonly recognized, in our shared history with Africa. Resident in Africa is the origin of creativity, innovation, artistry, and beauty. Creatives of African descent carry this potency with them and regularly tap into it to create spell-binding artistic works. There are abundant riches of alluring artistic talent residing with African creatives that are undiscovered. There are few outlets for this creativity in Canada. We seek to change that with your help.
The creative expressions of African descendants help establish connections between racial and cultural groups by spotlighting our similarities as human beings, and igniting appreciative curiosity for our differences, in ways that rightfully tear down the biases, stereotypes, and discriminatory attitudes that divide us. Creative artistic expressions in visual art, and public art in our public spaces enable Black communities to take charge of their own narrative in ways that foster belonging, advance inclusion, reduce the stressful trauma of racism, and inspire non-Black communities to value Black people’s contributions to society. This is the gift of a stronger and more cohesive, society that Black people’s art brings to our shared social experiences. This makes us a more productive society that is also more harmonious.
As a community, we may take collective pride (Ògo) in connecting with strength that comes from African creative expression, engaging with our African strength, and harnessing it by helping to provide opportunities for creative expression by Black artists.
Leadership Principles
- Resourcefulness
- Strengths-based excellence
- Lean into discomfort: embrace fierce conversation with healthy confrontation
- See obstacles as opportunities
- Seek to learn and take action
- Transparency and Openness
- Optimistic Servant Leadership
- Generosity
- Playfulness, rhythm and fun
- Create a sense of belonging and acceptance
- Valuing Lived Experience as Expertise
- Rapid Deployment: Be Nimble and Move Fast
Ògo Tàwa Inc
Since 2019
Copyright © 2020 Ògo Tàwa Inc. All rights reserved.
Ògo Tàwa Inc. is proudly a registered Canadian non-profit (BN)767197270RC0001