Elton Brown: 0:14

Welcome to SpeakUP! International with Rita Burke and Elton Brown!

Rita Burke: 0:19

Today we get to meet and to listen to a woman that I like to describe as a mover and shaker! A woman who embodies and embraces black excellence and black joy. To our listeners, I would like to introduce Trician-Renée Edwards. She's the founder of The Love Light Collective. She's an advocate for positive youth development, particularly youth who face systemic barriers based on race, based on class, creed and or gender. Trition has over 20 years of community work experience, and she has been a big sister, a mentor with youth for many years. Trician's life, work, education, and experiences have all led her to a very special passion project where she combines her natural gifts and technical skills with her commitment to black improvement and representation and wealth, Ms. Trician-Renée edwards!

Trichan Rene: 1:40

Oh, thank you so much Ms. Rita thank you Mr. Elton for having me today. I am just so delighted to be here. Thank you,

Elton Brown: 1:48

It is definitely our pleasure to have you as a guest of SpeakUP! International. Based on your website, you are a big Black Children's Book Week person. When is Black Children's week and how does that affect, our communities?

Trichan Rene: 2:08

Okay, so Black Children's Book Week is something that only actually started last year, so in 2022, and it starts February 26th and runs until March 4th. Now, I wouldn't say that I'm a big Black Children's Book Week person, but I will say that I was definitely intrigued by this movement. I sat in on a few of their meetings last year when it first started, and. I observed, so I attended some of the events last year. I had a look at their Black Children's Book Week museum, which was amazing. The museum consists of a bunch of books that are written by mostly new, Black authors, and it was just so delightful to see something like that come into motion, especially at a time like this, where diversity in literature for our children is absolutely important. So this year I've jumped on board and I will be hosting two events. The first event will be on the opening day, which is February 26th. This one is a virtual event and the second event will be on the closing day of March 4th. This one will be in person and I'm just really looking forward to being a part of this change and history in the making really.

Rita Burke: 3:28

It sounds to me as if this Black Children's Week, book week is quite exciting. But I wanna go back to something Trician, and the question that I have to ask is something that I found on your website. I want you to explain communal healing for us and for our audience. Please. What do you mean by communal healing?

Trichan Rene: 3:52

It takes a village to do just about anything. The terminology of communal healing to me means doing everything as a village, as a community inclusive of, parents, caregivers, teachers, the regular person working at the grocery store and of course most important to me are children because they are the future. So communal healing this is just taking an holistic approach and including the community with making sure that we are healing some of the things that have us in a negative position right now, and therefore to change that pain into power so that we can propel forward and do this together.

Elton Brown: 4:38

Wow, very motivational. What educational and personal benefits that children can gain from participating in The Love Light Learn interactive workshop?

Trichan Rene: 4:51

Love and Light collective just to loosely describe it is, as Ms. Rita mentioned, it is a communal healing movement and the reason why I chose those words to describe it, is because The Love Light Collective will have a number of different initiatives. So with that being said, love, light and Learn TV is the first initiative of the program. From Love, Light Learn TV, the Love Light Learn Interactive workshops have been born. Now these workshops are very important for the healthy development of children in general, but, specifically tailored towards the needs of black children and they gain from this is, number one, self-confidence. Number two, the ability to love themselves in a world where we're not always overtly loved and number three, for children who don't identify as being black, to be able to see. Black children as regular human beings as well. And this way everyone is able to see each other. The workshops that I've been blessed to facilitate so far have always been a very diverse crowd, and it is mind blowing to see how much children who are black and also children who are not black just really bask in all of the information that's provided. So each workshop typically includes a read aloud of a story that always has diverse pictures on its pages. Then we have a question and answer period where we speak about the content of the story. And then I tie in something that has to do with physical movement. So we either dance or we play a game where we have to be active. Last but not least, we do a confidence building activity, which usually includes a song. So there you can hear that there's a plethora of things that anyone participating in these workshops can pull away. For example, if you're not someone who likes to dance or who likes physical movement, maybe you might like singing, so you'll have fun during the singing segment. Or if you're someone who doesn't like neither of those things, but you enjoy reading. Then maybe you'll enjoy the story or maybe you'll enjoy the conversation piece. So each workshop is designed in a way that we're able to touch, a few things, but bring it all home with one message at the end of it.

Rita Burke: 7:23

It seems a little bit unfair. Trician that everything that you plan and you organize is for children. How about us adults? Don't we need entertainment and education and information? I'm only being my facetious self. So tell us then, what was the inspiration, the motivation, the impetus for The Love Learning Collective?

Trichan Rene: 7:47

The motivation behind this was during the height of the pandemic and with all of the racial tension that was happening, I had noticed that there wasn't a lot of friendly material for children to learn about race or to even just see themself without race being overtly spoken of. And so that's where the brewing of this kind began and also in relation to this, I had been going through some personal issues myself stemming from the fact that my dad had suddenly passed away and a part of my therapy was the therapist asked me, what did you like doing before all of this happened? And then I said, I loved reading. And then she went a little further and said, from our conversations, it doesn't feel as if you are just grieving your, the loss of your dad. It also feels as if most of this stems from your childhood and I should mention that my mom had passed away when I was just four years old. So she said, I think we need to go back there. And what did you like doing with mom? And I explained my mom taught me how to read before she passed away. And that's something that we did a lot together. We read and we sang. So she said, alright. your homework is go to the library and get some children's books. So once I hit up the library, I started noticing, wow, there's books with kids that look like me! I didn't have this when I was growing up and then I started going to the bookstores and buying them. And then from there it just became a snowball effect where I started recording myself, reading the stories and then I would just freestyle a lesson that went with what I read and I ended up deciding, this is something that I should share with the world. And it was encouraged by one of my friends who came over and saw the set that I had built as a result of the recording and she was like, yeah, this, you need to share this. This is beautiful. So that's the Origin behind The Love Light Collective and Love Light Learn TV and now the Love Light Learn Interactive workshops.

Elton Brown: 9:57

This is an amazing story. I'm really impressed by this. I'm sure our listeners will be impressed by such a emotional story. First of all, you talked about TV, so I wanna know what channel is it shown. And also the second part of my question is can you provide insight into the feedback that you received from parents regarding the effectiveness of the coloring activities offered to their children? I found that very interesting website. I'm like, coloring. I'm thinking, oh boy I love the color! I remember when I was like two it brought back a smile to my face. When create a situation for kids to come and just color. Tell us about that.

Trichan Rene: 10:47

Absolutely. So love, Light Learn TV can be found on YouTube and we're praying into existence that who knows, maybe in the future it will be picked up by an actual network. But right now it is on YouTube and you can find all of the videos under the Love Light Collective, or the playlist, which is called Love Light Learn TV. With regards to the coloring pages. So this again plays into the whole idea of identity and now we are so blessed to have crayons and markers that actually have different tones of browns. And so part of the coloring pages is to celebrate that I usually hand them out as fillers for when I'm doing workshops or if I have them in my car. If I see a child outside, I'll just give them, and the feedback that I've received is actually from one parent in specific, she was telling me that she actually did the coloring page as well like a family activity with her child. So she printed off two and she said that it was just a really nostalgic feeling to be able to tap into her inner child and to be able to bask in being able to use these crayons of different shades of brown as well and she was also explaining that it was very interesting to see that her child distinguished her face with one shade of brown to be specific about is one with two kids on it that, and it says, I am and I can. So she drew herself and she drew her brother, or she colored herself and she colored her brother and she was able to make the distinction because the two of them are of different skin tones. Interestingly, the mom said that this was a perfect way to speak about, you know, colorism and you know that even though we have different shades of brown, we are still all black people and we are still all equally as beautiful and I thought that was so powerful because to me, when I created these coloring sheets, it was just to be used as a filler and also to as I said before, play into identity but didn't think it would've gone as deep as that. So it's a really good feeling to hear that people are using these coloring sheets as family activities, which again goes right back into what I am aiming for with this communal idea of healing together. And it's great to know that it's causing a platform for conversations to be had.

Rita Burke: 13:25

Thank you so much for that response, Trisha Rennie Edwards from The Love Light Collective. SpeakUP! International aims to educate, inspire, and inform, and you're helping us to meet those goals today What are your thoughts about meeting your goals and your objectives? Are you happy with where things are at this point?

Trichan Rene: 13:48

Yes, I would say that I am very blessed because as I explained earlier this, I pretty much fumbled upon all of this, so I am very happy with where I am in the journey. There have been a lot of lessons learned because I never thought of myself as owning a business, and so learning how to handle myself as a business owner has been quite the learning curve, but has, even though there have been some downsides to that aspect of it, there have been many lessons, which I'm sure will are making me a better person and a better business owner with regards to the feedback that I've been receiving from viewers of the, whether it be from viewers of Love, light, Learn TV on YouTube, or from participants in the interactive workshops, all of that information has so far been nothing but positive.

Rita Burke: 14:43

So with that being said, I am happy with where I am, but definitely still learning how to function as a business owner. I think I have a ways to go with that piece.

Elton Brown: 14:57

So how can parents purchase the books you read to their children and what is the best way they can reach you?

Trichan Rene: 15:07

So I'll start with the latter part of the question. The best way that you can reach me would be at my website. So that's at www.theloveandlightcollective.ca. All links to all of my social media is also on that page, so you can find my YouTube channel, my Facebook, my Twitter, my Instagram, my TikTok. As you can see, there's a variety of places that you can connect with me and you can also send me an email. There is a couple of links on my page that will bring you directly to a contact us form where I will be more than happy to touch base with you. And now can you refresh my memory of the first part of the question? Oh yes. Where can people purchase the books that I read. So my main goal behind the literacy piece is to also uplift other black authors and other. Black owned business businesses that sell diverse books. So usually, pretty much with every story that I read, there's always a link on my YouTube channel as to where the books can be purchased. So if the author has a store has a store in Amazon, there's usually a link to Amazon there, or some of the more well-known bookstores within greater Toronto area, such as the Knowledge Bookstore. Indigo is also somewhere that now has a lot more diverse books. We also have Notability, which is an online bookstore, and they sometimes have popups at The flea market in Pickering, and there's a pretty new bookstore called Manifest Bookstore and also the Berks Bookstore. So I add links to these. Any of these places, I usually check to see if the books are in stock there. Before I do that, and so on any of my content, if there's a book that you really like, there's. To it as well. And how can I forget? A different book list is another one that I u that I would usually buy books from too.

Rita Burke: 17:10

It is so obvious, Trisha, that you're passionate about improving the lives of our youth. You are passionate about improving the lives of children in our community and all children to be exact. And I'm very impressed with that because what you're doing based on what I'm seeing and observers, you're bringing in joy to their lives and you're striving for black excellence so congratulations!

Trichan Rene: 17:40

Thank you.

Rita Burke: 17:40

There's other question that I have for you.

Trichan Rene: 17:43

Sure.

Rita Burke: 17:44

If you have the opportunity, which I'm sure you will very soon to write a book about Trician-Renée Edwards. What would you call it and why?

Trichan Rene: 17:56

Oh, that's a great question. Now, I am not sure if I would write a book about myself just yet. I feel like I still have lots more to learn and lots more to experience. But if I were to write a book about myself, it would probably be called, wow. This is a tough one. it would probably be called, Excellence! I do think that I embody that and I would say excellence with a full stop, because sometimes we view excellence as having to be perfect, and I am not that, and I embrace that part of it, and I feel like that's what actually puts me in the perfect position to run the type of business that I run now because I've experienced ups and downs and that way I'm able to identify with people of all walks of life. As a result of that, I've traveled a lot, I've seen a lot of things, and I believe that all of my experiences, whether they are good or bad, are the reason behind me being able to be as excellent as I am. So yes, the story about Trisha Renee Edwards would be called Excellence with a full stop at the end.

Elton Brown: 19:18

Wow. I would definitely read that book. Can you provide insight into the feedback that you may receive from parents regarding the effectiveness of the books that they read, do they ever talk about, wow, my kid never enjoyed reading, or I couldn't get my child to read, but now you know, my child is forever reading, doesn't look at TV much, or staying away from the games. Or maybe it's the total opposite, maybe where the kids say, oh, I hate reading. I don't want to, I don't ever want to do it again. I'm interested in hearing what type of feedback are you getting from parents?

Trichan Rene: 19:55

Sure. So with regards to Love Light Learn TV, the most feedback that I get is their children enjoy watching the show, the series, especially between the ages of the baby age. So this was actually mind blowing to me because in my mind I thought, okay, I am marketing toward. Ages three to 12. I've received so many videos of babies, like five months staring at the TV in awe and laughing and clapping along with me. And anytime I see that, my eyes always well up with tears because I would've never imagined such a thing. I even received a video once of a child crying. And I think the child was seven months at the time, crying. And when the mother turned me on, the crying stopped, and then she turned it off again to show me that, no, this is real. The child starts crying, turns it back on, the crying stopped for me, that's been like very, it's been just flattering and again, not something that I ever imagined. And I receive a. Inboxes on in Instagram from people saying, thank you for doing this. A lot of adults say that it feeds their inner child. I actually had a lady tell me that she sat and watched the entire playlist, of all of my videos, and she's I learned so much. Like these are things that we should have been taught and we weren't taught, and thank you for doing. So the general consensus or the general feedback that I've been receiving so far about the YouTube content has been very good. I've gotten small areas for improvement, which I. Have included in the next set of videos that will be aired. For that. I'm always grateful and I appreciate when people are able to say, Hey, maybe this is something different that you can do. But overall it's been pretty good feedback.

Rita Burke: 21:56

Thank you so very much, Trian. It's interesting that you said that someone talked about. Your program touching the inner child in them. As I said earlier, I'm a little jealous of the children who have the opportunity to listen and to watch and to participate with you. So thank you so very much for joining us today on this program, and I'm sure that The Love Light Collective is meeting a void in our community and a larger community. So come back and join us at another point and tell us more about what you're doing. So I, again, I say a thank you sincerely from SpeakUP! International. We are, we're certainly glad to have you on our program today.

Trichan Rene: 22:46

Thank you. I appreciate that very much and I will definitely be back. Maybe it'll be to promote Excellence once that's all written, and thank you again. I really appreciate this. This was such a blessing.

Elton Brown: 23:01

Thank you for listening to SpeakUP! International. For more information about our guests, Trician-Renée Edwards. and her professional services, please visit her website at theloveandlightcollective.ca. If you would like to have a conversation with us, SpeakUP! International, please drop us a message containing your name, company, name, what your organization is about and your email address to info@speakuppodcast.ca. To connect to our podcasts using Spotify or your favorite podcast platform search for SpeakUP! International. You can also find our podcast and using our web address, www.speakuppodcast.ca. Our logo has the woman with her finger pointing up mouth open, Speaking up! At SpeakUp! International, we aim to inspire, to inform and to educate!