Growing up in Toronto´s Kensington Market, Zanana Akande, 80, learned the importance of banding together to build community.Those lessons would ultimately inspire her life´s work in fighting for equality and improving the social, economic, cultural and political status of women, for which she was honoured on Saturday by Mayor John Tory with a ceremonial Key to the City.`We don´t come alone, we don´t live alone - I think the only thing we do alone is leave,` the former politician and community leader told a gathering of friends and family at the Harbourfront Centre. `We all work together.`Akande recalled that growing up, she watched women juggle busy work and home lives by helping each other with cooking, laundry, sewing and child care. And, she remembered how her parents - they were teachers in Barbados, but denied teaching jobs after immigrating to Canada because they were Black - volunteered to teach English to the newcomers in the area, most of whom were garment workers. In exchange for lessons, they were given material to make things for the family and community.`It was this way that they put things together, before they had community organizations,` said Akande. `Everyone does something.`In his speech, Tory lauded Akande´s `unwavering belief in the human spirit` and `how deeply she cares about other people.`TOP STORIES. IN YOUR INBOX: For the day`s top news from the Star`s award-winning journalists, sign up for our daily headlines newseltter.`If you look at her life, whether it´s in politics, as an educator or as a community public servant ... She has found ways to improve the lives of other people and to lift them up in many different ways.`For years, Akande served as a teacher and principal, but in 1990 she ran provincially for the NDP and made political history, becoming the first Black woman elected to the Ontario legislature and the country´s first Black female cabinet minister.She served in Bob Rae´s government as minister of community and s ...
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