SPOTLIGHT ON NILO–THAT GIRL YOU SHOULD KNOW

Your Business and Community Development

Critical to the Civil Rights Movement, though less spoken of, were small Black-owned businesses. Today, entrepreneurs like NiLo, are redefining business structures to empower their community to accelerate the work toward equity. She has dedicated the last eleven years of her life to community building with social accountability at the core of her business strategies. Acknowledging the complexity of her aspirations, she shares, “To be in business and to be anti-capitalist is almost like being white and being anti-racist – You literally have to be dismantling the structures every step of the way.” She actively works against the temptation to hoard assets, consistently seeking reinvestment avenues that foster enterprise within the Black community.

NiLo observed that more could be done to create a sense of community in Edmonton; spaces for Black people to gather and openly discuss shared experiences in business, parenting and simply existing within white dominated structures.

With Afrodesiac Naturals as the foundation, her entrepreneurial tendrils have extended to projects like Melanistic Magazine, The Black Multiverse Podcast, BLISS Band, We Lit Book Fair and most recently Kiskadee Group. Each venture has attracted and amplified the skills of a wide cross section of Black Albertans while responding to specific needs within the community. For example, conversations around food insecurity coupled with a rise in grocery costs was the catalyst for the Kiskadee Community Garden. The garden is a place of fellowship, a place to heal epigenetic trauma and an opportunity to pass down the art of planting to another generation.

Asked to identify what she considers

Harriet’s Tremendous Hairday book is the second in NiLo’s Harriet series, which centres on a young girl going to school with a new hairstyle.

to be the top three needs of the Black community, NiLo notes: • Policy and accountability around anti-Blackness and racism. • The freedom to fail – because entrepreneurs don’t fail; businesses fail. People of Color need the grace to extract lessons from a setback. • Celebration- spaces free from white gaze to simply appreciate our progress outside of racial trauma.

Her business, projects and strategies are reflective of her tenacity and love for the Black community. “Start where you are, with what you have, and do what you can”, duals as NiLo’s personal motto and a word of encouragement to young Black entrepreneurs.