Very involved in the community of Montréal-Nord and its surroundings, Stéphanie Germain shares her roles as community organizer and executive director of Educonnection, a non-profit organization that encourages the education and civic participation of young people.
Today, she takes off her many hats and confides in La Converse for an honest exchange.
Restoring the power to act
Stéphanie arrives warmly in the early evening. Her habit is to be well-groomed and ready. “I am a fashion lover,” she tells me with a laugh. My favorite way to communicate is the way I dress.” Always comfortable, always flirtatious — that's probably the best way to describe Stephanie's appearance. “The time I spend getting ready, taking care of my skin while playing music... it's often my favorite part of the whole evening,” she says with a laugh.
Once settled in, she began a unique story: hers. “I arrived in Quebec in the middle of February. I still remember my first contact with the cold and the snow: as soon as I got off the plane, I lost my shoe, and my foot touched the cold ground,” Stéphanie begins, her eyes busy, lost in her memories. “It was a bit like I was Cinderella,” she adds with a laugh.
Having grown up in public housing in Montréal-Nord, Stéphanie Germain wants to represent hope for young people in her neighborhood. With great emotion, she shares with us her journey and the ambitions that led her to where she is today. “What motivated me were really the memories of my childhood in Montreal North... A large part of my story is in this neighborhood,” she tells us, evoking memories that she obviously cherishes. Remembering the genesis of his social involvement always gives him that feeling of nostalgia.
“Sometimes I think of all the programs I didn't have access to when I was a teenager. Today, it is these opportunities that I want to offer to these young people,” she continues. After a moment of reflection, the community organizer adds that “the experiences that [she] did not have when I was younger [encouraged her] to create activities by, for and with young people so that they could benefit from them, but also give back to the community.”
Stéphanie discovered the community environment through several initiatives. “I started by giving dance lessons in community centers,” she says. I always liked to dance. Being able to teach it to the youngest allowed me to combine two things that I love.”
Arriving as an adult, she discovered a certain talent for the stage. “I had started to go on stage a lot more often, to host galas in Montreal North at the time,” she recalls.
Everything indicated that she had a bright future in the field of animation. Studies in communication and media introduced her to this specialization, but it was by chance finding herself in a role as a presenter at Louis-Joseph-Papineau high school in the Saint-Michel district that she started working with young people on a daily basis. “At the moment, I saw that a position was available, so I applied without asking too many questions. It spoke to me and it was enough for me,” she summarizes.
“I trained myself in the field,” she says. The director of Educonnexion spent a lot of time with young people and families. “I sit down with myself and ask myself: what could I create? What would I have liked to have had when I was younger? ”
Today, Stéphanie is organizing events by and for young people all over the world. She is an important part not only in Montreal North, but also in the lives of hundreds of young people to whom she has offered mentoring and inclusive community activities. “It's so important to know that when you wake up in the morning and something is wrong in your community, you have the power to change that,” she adds. This power to act comes in several forms: “by writing letters to elected officials, by mobilizing political leaders, by knocking on the door of City Hall, for example”, she lists.
The rift of May 2020
The road is not always easy, and Stéphanie can attest to that. In recounting her journey marked by the ups and downs of daily life, she confides that she experienced a major change following the death of George Floyd in the United States in 2020. “After the tragic death of George Floyd, there was like a Shift. From that point on, it became like a very intense race. All the attention was focused on the issues of the various Black communities,” she reports.
“I felt out of breath talking about these traumas, about the things we experience as a Black person on Quebec and Canadian soil,” she explains. Stéphanie explains how she had to share everything and get everything out of her heart in a very short period of time. She also adds that her fatigue, caused by the accumulation of activities related to her commitment against anti-Black racism, pushed her to isolate herself. “I had to close myself off from others. I closed my social networks, and I limited the access that anyone could have had to me.”
However, Stéphanie notes that she was very lucky. She is grateful for all that her work has given her. “I did not pay the price in my life to pursue my intentions,” she says. There are people like Fredy Villanueva who have given their lives for this cause. I am also thinking of Jayson Colin and other young people who lost their lives because society failed to protect them ” she declares in a loud voice.
Fredy Villanueva, who was a friend of Stéphanie's, was murdered in a police intervention in 2008. Fredy's story, in addition to having shaken all of Montreal, was particularly difficult for Stéphanie. She still remembers the times when the family of the deceased invited her to spend afternoons at home, or the barbecues she participated in with the Villanuevas. “Some people were shocked by Fredy's tragic end without even knowing him. So for me, there's no need to say how hard it was,” she said, lost in her memories.
“We saw a lot of young people in our communities, especially young Black people and young Arabs, die like that. In my opinion, it says a lot about the responsibility that our society has towards our young people,” she insists. If society failed to protect these young people, the answer to this failure lies in our understanding of the problem: “Armed violence, regardless of the form in which it occurs, Must be considered as a public health and safety issue,” she believes. In other words, she continues, we must offer local services for young people and families, who are the first to suffer from this violence.
“We have to make sure we take care of our young people,” says Stéphanie. That's why over the years, the community organizer has been committed to setting up a large number of projects dedicated to young people. “We owe them at least that,” she says.
Being Black and growing up in Quebec
Stéphanie recalls her own adolescence as a young black girl in Montreal. Her “waking period,” as she calls it, came in the middle of high school. “At 14, when you're a young black girl in Montreal, you don't learn much about your people. You ask yourself questions, you don't know much about yourself or the world,” she lets go down in a disappointed tone.
Black history is little or not taught in Quebec. According to the Montrealer, this has contributed a lot to the isolation and alienation of black people, especially young people. “Very little has been said about the presence of Black people in Canada. There have been forced displacements of our communities,” she began by explaining. She indicates that she would have liked to learn more about the ancestors of her community, and that it is necessary to teach history to young Black people in Quebec. “When you think of Black history, it is also the history of the country. I think it would have been necessary to have been shown how we were actors and actresses in history, that we contributed at all levels to the construction of this country,” she said.
In fact, this is what she is doing today in the mentoring activities she has set up. Stéphanie Germain works with people like Svens Telemaque and Webster (Aly Ndiaye), who tell the story of Black people in Canada.
Into the future
Stéphanie recalls the speech of a pastor she heard at a funeral. “The pastor said that, when someone dies near us, our first instinct is to ask ourselves about our own death, about our existence. He asked us to think about what we wanted to leave on Earth after we died,” she says thoughtfully. Even today, these words resonate in the young woman's head.
It goes beyond her person and her actions, she thinks. “One day, when I am no longer there, what will I have left to the youth and future youth? What I am building today is exactly for these people,” she explains.
Nevertheless, Stéphanie is aware of her privilege: that of being able to contribute to the life of the community. She wants young people to be able to give back to future generations themselves. “I am in a spirit of sharing, in the spirit of 'giving back',” she says. And I want others to be too.”
What Stéphanie wants for young people is to act, to act and to act. She sends the following message to young people in the neighborhood: “Be assured that if you speak up, there will be people to hear you. Never be afraid to speak up, and know that you deserve all the attention.”
“Miss Nana Germain” strongly believes in the civic engagement of young people. “Use your genius, be courageous. Tell people that you are there, that you exist, and that you have the right to contribute to the change that you want to see and that you want to create.”
“It's not only my job, it's also my life, basically,” she concludes on a strong note.