Creative connections

It’s a warm weekday morning and Saintuary Café is filled with strangers chatting about their work and passion projects over lattes and croissants.

This has become a regular scene for the co-working café club hosted by the Value Able, a growing grassroots community designed to help BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of colour) creatives in Winnipeg meet and collaborate.

The idea started percolating when founders Star Tactay and Daezerae Gil met at a networking event in February.

Tactay — a marketing professional and software development student from the Philippines — had recently moved to the city from Texas and was looking to meet other people of colour working in creative fields. Gil, a Winnipeg-born photographer, realized she was looking for the same thing.

“I was showing up to all these events going, ‘Where are all our people? Where’s the representation of our community?’ I just wasn’t seeing it,” says Gil, 30, who grew up watching her grandmother’s deep involvement in Winnipeg’s Filipino community.

The pair began organizing roving meetups at local cafés and heard similar stories from attendees, many of whom were freelancers, students and newcomers. It was difficult to make inroads in a new city, where language or cultural differences may present a barrier. It was hard to put yourself out there without examples of others doing the same. It was lonely.

With guidance from Winnipeg’s Social Entrepreneurship Enclave (SEE) and funding from the GLOCAL Foundation of Canada, Gil and Tactay launched Value Able in July as an online and IRL community of more than 80 members.

“Winnipeg is a place where relationships matter, it’s a word-of-mouth place, so if we build a centralized platform for people to find each other more easily, then we’re able to help people grow their opportunities, to be seen and known,” Tactay, 28, says.

The group still meets weekly for co-working sessions and communicates via WhatsApp group.

Gil and Tactay have started compiling a directory of local BIPOC businesses, organizations and creative entrepreneurs, and today, less than a year into their venture, are hosting their first major event.

Built for Us takes place Saturday at Red River College Polytech and includes musical performances, vendors, networking and a panel discussion.

“Oftentimes when we go to networking events and there’s a panel, I’m not seeing representation. (I’m) watching four women who don’t look like me, all telling me the same story,” Gil says.

Amanda Carvalho is one of tonight’s panellists. She was interested in getting involved upon learning about Value Able’s mission.

“I’m a person of colour and I’ve been looking for spaces in Winnipeg in which I can see myself,” says the graphic designer, who works with queer and BIPOC clients.

Carvalho, 33, attends the co-working club when she’s able and has enjoyed the change in routine and connections with potential new collaborators.

“I work from home, I work mostly alone, so it’s nice to be in community and talking to people. It makes me want to be more out there and participate in their endeavours,” she says.

Anas Khan, 28, has become a regular fixture of the co-working club. A research project manager in the University of Manitoba’s department of anthropology, he says it’s been beneficial to get outside his academic bubble.

“It’s good to be surrounded by a diversity of views,” he says of the artists, tech developers and writers in the crowd.

“It’s nice to sit together and have those little conversations between work that have a lot of meaning.”

Hearing other people talk passionately about their own creative endeavours inspired Khan to start a personal memory-keeping project about his Indian Muslim identity.

The ensuing support he’s received from Value Able members has sparked more conversations and a sense of belonging.

“It’s very therapeutic for someone who’s trying to find room and rootedness in this city,” Khan says.

“These communities enrich what is already here and they add to that creativity by tapping into the full potential of people who come to Winnipeg. They see this place as their home and home is where you feel you can be as creative as possible.”

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com