Dave & Endo: Big and Small Finance for Diversity

On Thursday, the head of the Royal Bank of Canada, which has billions in value and capital to be lent, told the annual general meeting of shareholders that the pandemic had highlighted an urgent need for society to become more equitable.

Marie Claude Lauarte
Journalism

Il faut, at-il dit en substance, donner une chance à tout le monde de participer à la création, à la gestion de la richesse et à son partage, et reconnatre que c’est pour le bien de la collectivité, de our future.

This well-meaning guy is called Dave.

Dave McKay.

And the little shameful thing is that when I saw his name written in full in an article in The Canadian Press summarizing his entry, I didn’t have it like a picture flashing before my eyes, in my imagination, millions traveling to companies that were founded by people of African descent, women, or transgender people. I had no vision of indigenous vice presidents or young non-binary professionals in the banking profession.

What came to my mind was the famous statistic compiled every year and reported every time by the Canadian, American and British media: In the financial world, there are more bosses and CEOs, and the administration named Dave or David is only women.

An amazing fact that clearly illustrates the gap separating men from the mainstream culture, even with good values ​​and good remarks, from the rest of the population – Christine, Mohamed, Tidiane, Masami, Beyoncé, etc. When the time comes to take control of the economy levers.

I’m not saying here that Dave McKay isn’t making a good plea, he’s just not right, or he should be shut up. I’m just saying he’s still talking to us in white, and we’re starting to wait for that to really change. Not just in words.

However, the good news – I’m looking and I’ll keep trying to find you – is that while Dave spoke about the need to make the world more equal and open to diversity, another happened. Ligne, hosted by Indu Krishnamurthy, told us about the little, everyday actions to turn the tide in favor of people from groups experiencing discrimination.

M^I Krishnamurthy is Managing Director of Microcredit Montreal, an organization that aims to financially assist entrepreneurs and professionals who do not have direct, simple and fair access to financial assistance provided theoretically – but not in reality – for everyone.

Why do these people have less access to it?

Because they are immigrants, blacks, women, and people the financial aid world has always raised against conscious barriers to some extent, because their credentials do not resemble those, the traditionalists, of the dominant group.

The aim of the micro-credit press conference in Montreal was to announce loud and clear the allocation of $ 2 million in aid, by the Department of Labor, Employment, and Social Solidarity, to re-launch a program called Trained Professionals Abroad.

This program assists immigrants with professional degrees, whether they are dentists, physiotherapists, architects or surveyors, to name a few, to get to know their education and skills here so that they can work at their peak.

Basically, we aim to help engineers not end up in taxi drivers or factory workers, out of necessity rather than because of choice. We all ran into one that commented like this.

Endo Krishnamurthy itself is an example of this problem.

In 2000, when she arrived in Canada, with her doctor husband who had been recruited by a hospital here, she found herself unemployed in her field, unable to obtain her accounting training recognized in India and the United Kingdom.

She ended up finding a job with Business Development Bank of Canada in 2008 and started volunteering at the organization that would become Microcredit Montreal, where she now holds a real position.

“I wanted to have a social impact,” she says.

it’s done.

Since its inception 30 years ago, this organization has helped 10,000 people by providing about 100 loans annually, of which about 40 are for entrepreneurs and about 60 for professionals. “But we support around 2,000 people a year,” specifies M.^I Krishnamurthy. Help takes many forms.

What money is loaned out to professionals used? To take the necessary courses to obtain the necessary training to recognize certain certificates or to pay for exams. “At the dentists, it costs $ 9,000! We are also talking about purchasing equipment.

Sometimes the paths are a little less linear than those for physiotherapists who want to practice here or doctors who want to be recognized by the college.

Rudi Lamor, for example, has a degree in engineering and a diploma from the Fashion Institute of Technology, a university in the New York State Network.

On arriving here, she had an idea of ​​becoming a photo consultant to help professionals and companies. Think of branding, but of what you offer very broadly, not just logos or advertisements.

“I wrote a book that I wanted to publish online and Microcredit Montreal helped me publish it on paper.”

It has become a calling card for his consulting business.

She says the organization also allowed her to “bridge” her knowledge of the business world in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and New York, where she lived.

“I am multicultural,” she says. I needed help putting them all together. ”