Montreal anti-racism campaign inspires talent among young immigrants

Integrating into a new country can be hard, especially for younger immigrants who don’t see themselves represented in mainstream media. Montreal-based non-profit Motivation Jeunesse is looking to change that.
Its new ad campaign Montre-nous tes couleurs is French for “show us your colours”. It’s designed to help young newcomers by highlighting the value their diversity gives to the city, something intercultural worker Gabrielle LeClerc believes is key in making everyone feel welcome.
“Don’t be shy to show your colours, don’t be shy to try, don’t be shy to display what you can bring,” LeClerc said.
2020 has seen race and equality discourse enter mainstream media, with many people only just beginning to open themselves up to learning about other cultures. Motivaction Jeunesse member Aime Shukuru Tuyishime felt all the negative stories being circulated online needed to be balanced out with some optimism.
“We didn’t want to denounce things, we wanted to encourage people to open up to other cultures whether it’s the White poeple or the immigrants,” Tuyishime said.
“So we are asking people to be much more friendly and we are also encouraging people to exploit their potential.”
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Motivaction Jeunesse looks to inspire young immigrants to achieve their goals through representation in mainstream media. Sharing authentic stories was an important part of that initiative, which is why many of the young people featured in the video are also creators of the ad itself.
“We involve the youth we are working with in the entire process of when we create something to create a platform where they can speak up, where they can be heard,” LeClerc said.
“We work closely with the classes when they first arrive on their first year and want to have this positive model in the media where they can see and recognize themselves and be like ‘that can be me in a few years'”.
While the campaign is only set to run until December 9th, organizers hope that message will continue to be shared on social media.
“That’s one of the reasons why we did the campaign, is to show how rich it is to have diversity in our society, and how they’re all unique and how they all have their talents, they all have something to bring to society and we just need to let them the space to be, show their own colours,” LeClerc said.
You can participate in the online movement by sharing a video of your talent using the hashtags #weareallhome #tousalamaison or #mycolours #mescouleurs.