Leaders and Legacies Canadian leaders and leadership stories
Everton G. Gordon might not be a household name, but he is a determined, incredible Canadian who I respect a great deal. The (interim) CEO of the Jamaican Canadian Association of Toronto (JCA) has a resume that is a mixture of successful biography in academia, activism and social justice engagement.
Since arriving in Canada in 1990, he has had a busy life. He has been a manager of a program at downtown’s Sojourn House Refugee Shelter, the gateway of many of Toronto’s newest immigrants and refugees. He has also been an instructor at Ryerson University’s Continuing Education Suicide Prevention and Intervention program. At Seneca College, he served as an instructor in its Counselling and Disability Services program by providing a variety of services such as counselling, support, referral services as well as mentorship. As an instructor, he is making a positive impression on the future guardians of Canada’s social programs.
Gordon has been a popular anti-racism course instructor at a wide variety of venues and has been a teacher on mental health issues, mediation, and criminal law at a number of colleges in Toronto. He has also been a mentor to countless new and old immigrants who have had to navigate their way in their adopted new country. Wherever he has been stationed, he has expanded his role and has been an inclusive activist. He has always helped create forward movement for everyone’s betterment.
I am proud to call him a mentor. That is precisely why I nominated him for the prestigious AroniMAGEaward, which recognizes unsung community heroes of Toronto. He is a worthy candidate. His decades of social justice activism is influenced by Jesuit teachings which he passionately follows, including positive community and nation building work that he deserves to be recognized and acknowledged for.
Everton Gordon
At Margaret’s Housing and Community Support Services, where he served previously as manager of its signature mental health and justice program, he provided leadership in the unique delivery of its services to its diverse clients. At Sojourn House Refugee Shelter, where he served as its manager of the shelter program for six years, he provided leadership, direction, and mentoring to new immigrants.
At the Jamaican Canadian Association where he currently works, he has become an activist CEO to the organization, helping it to expand its services and become more self-sufficient.
The first time I met Gordon was when I had been invited to speak about a unique program of the Maytree Foundation that I was involved in then. In his introduction of me, he spoke eloquently of his own successful biography to Canada’s future citizens and how we, too, as aspiring citizens of Canada, could also attain it. He spoke well and was poised, and it seemed that he believed in our aspirations rather than our limitations.
Since then, I have witnessed him in action. He has mentored me and many others to become successful Canadian citizens. He is easily charmed by the music of my native Ethiopia at Toronto’s diverse Ethiopian eateries. As strangers rush to him for advice he listens and he responds well, even if it compromises his leisure time.
I recently witnessed him in deep conversation with one of Toronto’s well known activists, Gordon Cressy, as they both planned nation-building projects in his native Jamaica and Toronto. I was heartened to know that there are indeed such people in our backyards concerned for public good and service.
What are his future plans? In a year, Gordon expects to complete his PhD from the University of Toronto’s Sociology Department. He will also continue to lead the Jamaican Canadian Association into an era of growth while continuing to mentor a new generation of community leaders.
I have absolutely no doubt of his success.
– Samuel Getachew is a regular contributor to the Huffington Post and Leaders and Legacies.