Yinka’s family immigrated from Nigeria to Canada, and she grew up in the North York area in Toronto. She began her post-secondary education at Carleton University where she studied journalism, hoping to bring awareness to socioeconomic issues and inequalities that affect black and brown people. She then went on to manage a production company before attending Osgoode, Canada’s oldest law school, where she was able to explore her passion for human rights through a legal lens. In 2016, Yinka attended VOW’s summer peace camp and began designing artwork and graphics for the organization. She later joined the VOW board in 2019 and has since helped to organize a number of events and seminars as well as leading VOW’s fundraising initiatives. Additionally, she has represented VOW at UN conferences like the Ocean Conference and the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Yinka will also be attending the sixty-seventh session of the CSW with VOW in New York this month. Yinka is passionate about helping others, both through her activism and legal work. She is a strong advocate for anti-racism and speaks on the complex and pervasive nature of anti-Black racism in Canadian society. She highlights how this continues to shape the realities that black people in Canada face daily, with the many covert and pernicious forms of discrimination that exist today. Ultimately, despite the existing barriers that people of color face, she emphasizes the power that creating safe and inclusive spaces can have in encouraging broader social acceptance and tolerance and facilitating the success of young black and brown people. |
