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Wednesday January 22 2025 at 11:00 | updated at January 30 2025 8:55 Community

Advocating for an intercultural approach: The Igbo community’s shared values

The IDAOBC’s 2024 summer picnic. | Photo courtesy of IDAOBC
The IDAOBC’s 2024 summer picnic. | Photo courtesy of IDAOBC
If Canada is a cultural mosaic, it must recognize intercultural connections in addition to multicultural ones, says Rev. Paul Ndukwe, president of the Igbo Development Association of British Columbia (IDAOBC). The IDAOBC has supported Igbo immigrants in BC through community events, educational workshops and a language school – while preserving the diversity that exists within its culture.
Advocating for an intercultural approach: The Igbo community’s shared values
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The IDAOBC’s 2024 summer picnic. | Photo courtesy of IDAOBC

“When you talk about the Igbo people, you are talking about a race,” says Ndukwe. “It’s a race with various cultures that are very complex, and they are interwoven together.”

Different, but similar

Representing the different Nigerian states, the IDAOBC works with other Igbo organizations – including the Anambra United Association of BC, Anioma Cultural Association of BC and Enugu Sociocultural Association of BC – reflecting the diversity within this culture. According to Ndukwe, who is originally from the Abia state, regionality is important to understanding the complexity of Igbo intercultural connections.

“Within the Abia state, my own culture of doing things is similar but different from the way somebody else within the same state is doing their own thing when it comes to marriage traditions, dressing and governance,” he explains.

Just as this diversity is seen in their language through its many dialects, it is also reflected in the range of religions practiced in Igbo communities, including Roman Catholicism, Anglicism, Pentecostalism and ancestral worship. Despite the cultural differences, Ndukwe points out how their unifying values – including belief in the extended family system, respect for elders and the sacredness of life – are rooted in ideas of kinship and hospitality.

“We also value life in that I wouldn’t be eating three times a day and seeing you go hungry,” he adds. “You don’t have to be related to me for me to take care of you.”

Kinship is represented by the colour red in the IDAOBC’s logo of two intersecting horns and a red cap – which Ndukwe recognizes as distinctly Igbo. Reflecting these core values, the organization and its member associations complement rather than compete, particularly through showing support at each other’s events.

Valuing intercultural integration

IDAOBC also provides financial support to its members experiencing death in the family. For Ndukwe, a major challenge facing BC’s Igbo community is Canadian culture’s focus on the nuclear family. He notes how Igbo’s encompassing approach to family means they are often responsible for their parents, nieces, nephews and other extended family members.

“I’m also in charge of the children of my younger sister, but if I want them to come here, the immigration system will not permit them,” he explains.

The organization is working to secure funding for their 2025 plans, which includes expanding their language school to adult students and providing more cross-cultural education workshops. One of these workshops is aimed at helping Igbo parents adapt to their children’s Canadian-influenced upbringing.

“For them, [their] daughter is not grown up until she is married,” he says. “So, now we’re trying to adjust them to say, ‘they have grown, let them.’”

Ndukwe’s goal is to emphasize intercultural connections: helping parents see how they can preserve Igbo values while still integrating into Canadian society. He would also like to see the community develop its entrepreneurship – a value of investing in others that is central to Nigerian life.

“Back home, we have what you call family apprenticeship system: ‘I sponsor you, so you learn a trade, and when you learn a trade, I support you to start that trade,’” he explains. “And when you do that and you begin to succeed, you take one of the members of the family and you train that person.”

According to Ndukwe, Igbo immigrants often come as international students, lacking the financial resources to recreate this chain of support. He hopes that the community will continue to develop and impact BC’s public sphere, pointing to Hon. Uzoma Asagwara, a member of Manitoba’s legislative assembly, as inspiration.

“We want people to know the uniqueness of the Igbo culture and the Igbo race,” he adds. “The opportunity given to me now is a way to say, ‘we are here, and we are here to integrate and to build the mosaic that is here.’”

For more information, please see www.igbobc.org.