It started with the playing of the Canadian National Anthem followed with reading of the indigenous land acknowledgement. A short Video presentation about the history of ACSDC followed after the president of the ACSDC Mr. Kabu Asante welcomed all the participants and recounted the purpose of gathering and emphasized on the theme: "Breaking Barriers-Contribution of Continental Africans"

As part of his contribution, the Consul General of Ghana in Toronto, Hon Hakeem Balogun via zoom stressed that, "No one will celebrate us except when we trumpet our own achievements and in the same breadth project our potential. I want to state that Continental Africans have played a very major role in breaking the many barriers that have been placed on our path to global development and indeed to our own projection as Africans on the international scene.

He added that "there is no gainsaying that Africans are the most affected of all races when it comes to barriers to progress. In as much as Africans have been tolerant, warm and generous to all other races from ancient ages to date, other races have constantly raised barriers through condescending definitions that cast negative slurs on our race, thus wrongfully profiling us and denying us the recognition that we rightfully deserve, irrespective of our contribution to progressive development globally.

"I am actually best known for the AfroGlobal TV channel of which I am President and CEO. It means that whether you are Afro-Caribbean, Afro-American, Afro-Canadian, Afro-Brazilian, and as long as a person of African descent, you are part of the global African sort of family as well," he added. "In the corporate sector at large, you are beginning to see Continental African people making waves, taking strides and together we can actually increase opportunities and make it possible for us to succeed as a community. So in essence, it is important for us to be able to appropriately share our experiences and make it possibility for especially our children to have a better experience than ourselves," he emphasized.

Mawa shared some of his experiences when he came to Canada; "when I arrived in Canada, I noted that image of Africa and the African diaspora on TV and print media was actually negative. I there­ fore resolved at that time to get into the media field in order to make a difference, and then seeing the kind of systemic barriers that affect people of African descent when they want to get into any profession, I decided that if I cannot be hired, I would create a job for myself and then open more doors for others as well." "So, while still a student I decided to start the company Silver Trust Media. I was lucky to have been helped by Senator Donald Oliver to secure a student venture loan of $3000 which I paid back to the bank after starting my company by 2002 we launched the Planet Africa TV on Omni TV and by 2016 we launched the Global TV channel a 24-hour channel on Rogers, Bell and Telus cables."

"I really appreciate the ACSDC for creating a platform similar to what we are doing that will bring all of us together to celebrate. In academia we have Prof George Dei originally from Ghana who is probably one person who have enabled so many people from our community to secure masters' degrees and PhDs and so on in this country," On Mental Health, Mawa alluded to the fact so many of our people are going through tremendous challenges in part because of the experience of racial discrimination and other challenges as well. It is through advocacy to address this successfully. He ended his speech with the statement that, "our latest project 100 most influential black Canadians project is our way of making sure that we are able to identify members of the black community, including those who are actually from the Continent of Africa." Closing remarks was delivered by Kabu Asante, ACSDC President.

There were two Masters of Ceremonies, Ms. Kemi Amusan (Lady Kay) at location and Ephraim Mwaura virtual.