Hello everyone! My name is Joy Walcott-Francis and I use the pronouns, she/her. You can hear the pronunication of my name here. I am a first-generation immigrant to Canada, and throughout my academic journey, was a first-generation student.

My roots

My home country Jamaica, named Xaymaca (land of wood and water) by the Tainos people of South America, the island’s original inhabitants pre-European contact and erasure. Since migrating to Canada, I have lived, worked, learned, and been given the opportunity to recharge on the unceded and ancestral homelands of the Coast Salish people, who have cared for these lands since time immemorial and to whom, I am grateful. I locate myself on these lands as a daughter and descendant of people who were stolen from their homelands, forced across the Atlantic, made to endure the horrors of the middle passage and the hardship of enslavement, and some of whom, despite it all, survived to afford me the privileges that I have today.

My work 

I am currently the Director, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion here at snəw̓eyəɬ leləm Langara College. Prior to this role, I have occupied instructional roles both here at Langara and at Simon Fraser University. However, my passion for engaging in equity work within an academic institutional context, comes from experiences of having to navigate post-secondary institutional spaces as a woman of colour and witnessing first-hand, the inequities that need to be addressed.

Soulfood

Outside of work, I enjoy going for weekend hikes that lead to a waterfall, a lake or a view. But more than anything, what really feeds my soul is a good Caribbean party and participating in Caribbean Carnival celebrations, “a festival and celebration tied to freedom and the emancipation of slavery”, celebrated by many Caribbean communities across the globe.