Asè, we are Iyé Creative
Iyé Creative is a social enterprise working to continue building systems where individuals thrive and every voice is valued in our local food systems, our work involves strengthening relationships with small-scale farmers within the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) framework. We aim to provide nutrient-dense and culturally relevant food to the communities we serve.
Additionally, we undertake support and services to enhance the capacity and application of equity lenses to community investment and development across multiple sectors. This includes facilitating local, land-based learning and participating in evidence-based policy development, with a strong emphasis on community consultation.
The communities we work alongside include peoples of African descent, Indigenous peoples residing in urban settings, single parents, pregnant individuals, people facing visible or hidden disabilities, seniors, 2SLGBTQ+ communities, people with chronic illnesses, and anyone who has been historically oppressed.
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MISSION
Iyé Creative empowers communities at the margins, due to intersecting systems of oppression, to build a more equitable and culturally-rooted food system through community consultation, knowledge mobilization, and policy advocacy.
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VISION
A world where ancestral wisdom guides us toward equitable food systems and communal abundance, respecting all our relations.
Ariel
Co-Founder
Ariel is a community connector, Afrofuturistic, systematic thinker, Iyé Creative co-founder, and entrepreneur born in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. Ariel for the past 10 years have been involved in coordinating at the highest level, optimizing, and managing various community, and international collaboration projects and grassroot initiatives that favour long-term, reciprocal and respectful relationship building for communities in Cuba and what’s currently Canada.
Jess
Co-Founder
Jess is the Iyé Creative co-founder, foodie, and entrepreneur born in BC, Canada. For the past 7 years Jess has been involved in the execution of various anthropological and archaeological research-based projects that favour long term and respectful relationship building with First Nation communities. As a community builder, she loves connecting with knowledge keepers in order to create alternatives based on global ancestral practices to solve local, and modern unbalances. During her spare time she enjoys crafting using traditional practices.
Mohanned Ghadban
Videographer
Nancy Nyandika
Researcher
Mohanned has been engaging within Iyé from the beginning. Graduated from SAE Institute Jordan - Creative Media Education.
Moe is inspired by details and lights in order to tell stories by showing the ideas on screen and capture the moments to translate what is seen through his lens.
He's currently married with two angel kids.
Nancy was born in Kenya, East Africa. She is a visitor on the unceded ancestral lands of the Lək̓ʷəŋən People. She is passionate about sustainable development rooted in community (and individual) participation as communities (and people) always know what they need and what works best for them.
Her work and life experiences have taught her that we are all connected, to each other, and to our environment. She is learning what it means to be a global citizen in a multi-cultural world.
Nancy is an alumna of Royal Roads University’s Master of Arts in Intercultural & International Communication program.
Razan Mereeb
Visual Knowledge Mobilization Coordinator
Razan is Lebanese-born, and is a visitor on the unceded ancestral lands of the Lək̓ʷəŋən Peoples. She is a passionate artist, digital designer & illustrator. As a Muslim Arab Woman, Razan has always been dedicated to empower IBPOC women and individuals through her craft. She is an alumna of the University of Victoria's Bachelors of Visual Arts Program, where her pieces authentically reflected her identity, and were, and will always be, dedicated to uplifting minorities, especially Muslim WOC. Razan is honored to serve diverse audiences through her work with Iyé Creative, where her design work contributes to food justice and inclusivity.