Apart of the Black Love Matters Un-conference, Black Daddies Club will be hosting a summer series called Black Family Matters, apart of these series will be our yearly summer hikes. The Black Daddies Club summer hikes will be a series of hikes that takes place one sunday a month for the Months of June (25th), July (23rd) and August (13th), 2017. The purpose of these hikes are for Black Families to gather at Glen Rouge conservation park (Scarborough/ Pickering border) Sunday morning’s starting at 10AM to 2pm, and spending the early part of the day, walking and discussing topics as a group. Some of the goals of the hikes is to create community at basic level, but on a deeper level, these hikes are about reconnecting with the land and having our children as well adults reconnect with what it means to learn from nature.

The process of the hikes, we gather at 10am at the base camp, near the parking lot. We then form a circle, and speak about the walking agreements of the hikes, such as walking in pairs, not littering, staying clear of poison ivy (staying on the trail), be safe. Each month there will be a topic posed at the beginning at the hikes, and people will speak about these topics during the hikes and at the end of the hike we will speak about the learnings from the hikes, both lessons from the conversations and nature.

People have to engage with three different people throughout the duration of these hikes, this promotes the idea of people speaking with new individuals and getting to know knew people.

What: Black Daddies Club annual Family and Friends Hike

Venue: 7450 Kingston Rd, Scarborough

Dates:

• Sunday June 25th, 2017/ 10am to 2pm

• Sunday July 23rd, 2017/ 10am to 2pm

• Sunday, August 13th, 2017 (last hike)/  10am to 2pm

Cost: Free, bring snacks and water for yourself and family

Dates and topics for the hikes:

• Sunday June 25th, 2017

Here are some of the potential questions that we will take up on the hike this week:

• • ( what are three things you have done, or said to someone to show them that you appreciate them and what are three things someone have done or said to you that showed you that they appreciated you?)

  • ( What does love mean to you? What have you done today to take care of yourself?)

  • Grandparents did you treat your grandchildren differently than your own children?

  • How important are your parents in your life, how different do you think your life would be if your parents were not in it?

  • What part does your grand parent play in your life

  • Do you feel that they love or treat you differently than your parents

• Sunday July 23rd, 2017

Here are some of the potential questions that we will take up on the hike this week: 

• • (Topic: Share an experience when you felt a lot of courage

    • Share a story of when u felt really confident and positive about yourself

• Sunday, August 13th, 2017 (last hike)

Here are some of the potential questions that we will take up on the hike this week:

• • Topic: What kinds of things would you like to know about adulthood?”

  •  “what questions would you ask your younger self or a child/youth?”

These hikes are open to people of all genders, race and religious background, however the premise of these hikes are on the importance of the Black families, Black community at large gathering and claiming space to have dialogue together. With that being said, we also see the importance of other cultures being apart of these walks, so that there can be mutual learning and sharing in the process of these walks.