Black Mental Health Week: Presenting the ACB mural at CMHA Ottawa

Mar 1, 2025

To mark the occasion of Black Mental Health Week in Ottawa, we’re highlighting one of our prized possessions at CMHA Ottawa: the mural dedicated to African, Caribbean and Black individuals and communities.

This mural is proudly displayed in the second-floor client space at the CMHA Ottawa offices at 311 McArthur Avenue. It was created collaboratively with MASC Ottawa outside the Vanier Hub by muralist Jimmy Baptiste along with staff, peers, and the help of some local children in Vanier on a hot August day in 2022.

Here are a few words from Adrien, a system navigator from our Familiar Faces program at CMHA Ottawa, on behalf of the branch’s Anti-Black Racism Task Force:

This piece represents dialogue, and a glimpse into the heterogeneity of Black people and people of colour in Canada from coast to coast to coast. In the foreground, the piece elicits thoughts of colourfulness, diversity, beauty, healing, trust, hope, and humanity. The background evokes a sense of reconciliation with change through acceptance of Black beauty, Black power and Black excellence, and by reckoning with pain and suffering stemming from Black people’s psychosocial history. 

This mural is one of three murals inspired by the creativity of CMHA Ottawa clients and staff, and executed by local artists to reflect the community we serve by bringing people together physically and culturally – and form connections that transcend differences.

Have an uplifting and meaningful Black Mental Health Week, Ottawa! CMHA Ottawa is proud to strive for allyship with local African, Caribbean and Black communities in Ottawa, providing safe, welcoming, inclusive and culturally competent programs, services and physical space for all.

Related:

The Canadian Mental Health Association, Ottawa Branch (CMHA Ottawa), is an independent, community-based non-profit organization that provides services for eligible individuals in the Ottawa area with severe and persistent mental illness and/or substance use disorder, many of whom are experiencing chronic homelessness or are vulnerably housed. CMHA Ottawa is dedicated to promoting good mental health, developing and implementing sustainable support systems and services, and encouraging public action to strengthen community mental health services and related policies and legislation.