Noella Muribora

I’m the CEO of The Voice of Our Seniors, a grassroots non-profit serving seniors and caregivers in Ottawa, and a caregiver for my mom who is French-speaking and immigrated to Canada from Burundi in 2016. She has mobility challenges and faces language barriers, so I help any time or place she needs me to support her independence, like buying groceries in the winter, navigating taxes, and with her appointments.

Ottawa may be a bilingual community, but that’s not always the reality in practice. When she calls her family doctor and the office doesn’t have someone who speaks French available, I have to attend her appointments. I’m proud to be taking care of my mom but it takes a toll. Caregivers need access to paid leave and mental health resources and practical support before they reach a breaking point. I know that if I don’t take time for myself, there is a real risk of burnout, so I’ve learned strategies to protect my well-being. When I can, I also delegate some responsibilities to my kids, who are 16 and 17, and help take care of their grandma.

After seeing my mother struggle with social isolation and experiencing my own challenges, I came together with a group of fellow caregivers and decided that we needed to offer programs for seniors in their communities.  We knew seniors needed culturally inclusive programs that were accessible within their own communities, rather than expecting them to overcome even more barriers to participate.  

Most of the seniors we support rely on ODSP income support so we wanted to offer these programs for free.  We began by organizing activities and paying the instructors ourselves, but that was not sustainable. That’s when we realized we needed to find other sources of funding, which led to the creation of The Voice of Our Seniors, or La Voix de nos Aînés.

The organization has two objectives. The first is to combat the social isolation seniors face in their communities and the second is to support their caregivers. Our programs are bilingual by design, because oftentimes the caregiver speaks English but their family members speak French. Our services are open to all but we find the majority of the people we support are Black, Francophone, racialized, immigrant and newcomer seniors who may be underserved by mainstream programs. Many organizations overlook the aspect of mobility and organize events where seniors have to travel to other places to attend, but our organization is dedicated to bringing our programs directly to seniors and removing barriers to access rather than asking seniors to overcome them.

 We currently provide informal peer support for caregivers, as they navigate the emotional and practical demands of caregiving. Through this work, we are seeing that many caregivers are facing complex questions, isolation, and signs of burnout, often without access to the structured support they need.

In African culture, caring for your loved ones is an expectation.  Calling yourself a caregiver can feel as though you are separating the work of care from your identity as a son or daughter. If you say I’m tired because you have a child with a disability who needs support, people understand. But if you say I’m tired because my mom calls me 10 times a day, that is not recognized as caregiving within our communities.

I want to raise awareness about the experiences of caregivers within the African Francophone communities in Canada and make sure that caregivers are seen and recognized. My hope is that, with meaningful government support, more people will feel empowered to identify themselves as caregivers, come forward and ask for the help they need.