Original Article by Michael Thomas on Toronto Caribbean

Guidance for Loved Youth Foster Care aka GFLY is a Black run organization that is dedicated to making sure that Black and Indigenous youth in the criminal justice system survives and soar in their efforts to realize their full potential. One of the mottos of this Guidance for Loved Youth is to make sure they give a family-like environment for these youth to flourish, but like lots of things in life, there are obstacles that this organization will have to jump over to reach their destination.

I spoke with the founder of this organization Shereen Callender about the organization’s plans, her courage in the face of adversity, and how God is front and center in all that her fraternity is doing.

Callender, who started her career at the Toronto District School Board and worked her way up to Peel Children’s Aid, has been in the caring for youth business for over fifteen years told me, when her organization applied for help from Durham CAS “I was told on Zoom meeting with Michelle Watson there is no need for a program like this as Black and Indigenous youth are not the concern right now, and that there was a type of Police organization that was doing something similar already, so there was no need for another one.”

All this when it is public knowledge that Black children make up a large part of the population in the Children’s Aid Society here in this country. Callender told me she also reached out to Toronto’s Mayor’s office in connection to set up a meeting but that too went dead, “I sent them the date and time as requested but never got a follow-up,” she said.

“Both the Mayors of Ajax and Brampton actually opened up my email and did not respond back to me.”

I asked Callender why…