Dalhousie's annual African Heritage Month launch always delivers exceptional sound, reflection, and inspiration. Another element at the heart of the event is recognition and praise.
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At this year's event, five African Heritage Month Awards were presented to members of the Dalhousie community who demonstrate outstanding commitment to African Nova Scotian, Black, and African Diaspora culture across campus and through various external communities.
Presented at the event by Amina Abawajy, education advisor in Dalhousie's Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusivity and Accessibility, the awards give thanks to those who are making a difference across campus and beyond.
Tarelle Sterling, third-year Dalhousie student
Tarelle Sterling is a third-year nursing student at Dalhousie. He immigrated to Canada from Jamaica in 2017 at age 12. With a passion for community leadership and service, Sterling has served on the Nova Scotia minister of education's student advisory council and a member of Parliament's community youth advisory council. He received the Halifax Regional Municipality Youth Volunteer of the Year award in 2023. In 2025, he worked as a summer research associate under the supervision of Dr. Keisha Jefferies on a study examining Nova Scotia nursing programs from the perspectives of Black nursing students.
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Currently, Tarelle is on the Dalhousie University School of Nursing equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility (EDIA) committee and works as an undergraduate student nurse in the IWK emergency department. Driven by the social and economic barriers he has witnessed, Tarelle is a health advocate committed to bridging the gap between access, education, and outcomes.
Jason Chatman, Student Health and Wellness
Dr. Jason Chatman received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles in in 2006 and moved to Halifax in 2007. He has worked at the IWK, in private practice, and at Dalhousie. A significant portion of his private practice involved providing pro bono or sliding-scale services to African Nova Scotians who otherwise would not have been able to access care. In addition to providing psychological care to students at Dalhousie, Dr. Chatman teaches in the clinical psychology graduate program, with a focus on working with diverse populations.
Since starting at Dalhousie, he has worked at breaking down barriers to access to care for Black students, including partnering with the Black Student Advising Centre (BSAC) to provide psychological support where students feel safe. In December, Dr. Chatman and the advisors at BSAC received funding from the Community Foundation of Nova Scotia to provide Afrocentric Mental Health Care for students of African descent here on campus.
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Guyleigh Johnson, Black Student Advising Centre
Guyleigh Johnson, an Advisor at the Black Student Advising Centre, is a proud African Nova Scotian mother, artist, author, advocate, facilitator and filmmaker from the vibrant community of Dartmouth North. With strong historical ties to the African Nova Scotian communities of Liverpool, Preston Township, Digby and Five Mile Plains. What inspires her artistic work is the preservation of African Nova Scotian stories, experiences and emotions, creating space for them to feel seen, heard, valued and celebrated. She is currently working on new projects within theatre/film, as well as writing a Young Adult fictional novel about grief, intergenerational learning and healing.
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Leah Jones, Faculty of Medicine
Dr. Leah Jones is a family physician from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, with roots in the historic African Nova Scotian community of Whitney Pier. As the first Academic Director of Black Health at Dalhousie Medical School and Physician Lead for the Nova Scotia Sisterhood, she is dedicated to advancing equity in health care and medical education. Dr. Jones also practices addictions medicine at Direction 180 and with the QE2 Inpatient Addiction Medicine Consult Service. The strength, beauty, and resilience of the communities she serves inspire her work every day.
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Tjása Allen, third-year Dalhousie student
Tjása Allen is in her third year at Dalhousie with a double major in Black and African Diaspora Studies and Theatre. She is connected to Black and Caribbean communities in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), and this year marks ten years since she moved from Jamaica to Halifax. She recently completed a short film with the Delmore "Buddy" Daye Learning Institute and Jack.org titled Between Generations: Carrying YARD Forward, which explores Black mental health across generations. She also had the honour of contributing to the recent Dalhousie Art Gallery installation It's About Time: Dancing Black in Canada 1900–1970 and Now. This week, she will perform in her first Fountain School of Performing Arts production, Macbeth. In the future, she hopes to continue honing these crafts and grow into a multidisciplinary artist, creating work that brings Black and African Diaspora Studies and Theatre together through performance, education, and intergenerational storytelling. (Though Tjása was unable to attend the ceremony, her mother was there to accept on her behalf.)
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