YOLANDE PARSONS immigrated to Winnipeg in 1982 from St Vincent and immediately got involved in the Black community, beginning with the St. Vincent Association of Winnipeg, the Martin Luther King Celebration Committee, and the Black History Committee. For six years, she co-hosted the Community television show “In Touch with the Caribbean” and was a frequent emcee at many community events. In 1985, she was crowned “Miss Cari-Cana” representing the Caribbean Pavilion at the Folklorama Festival of Nations that year. She also served as the Winnipeg Black Community’s Youth Representative for International Youth Year (1985). Yolande was a staunch advocate for the Winnipeg Black community throughout her time living in Winnipeg, helping to organize and mobilize support around Black issues of the day, such as marches and efforts in support of Nelson Mandela’s release.
In 1990, Yolande was part of a group of community leaders who were invited to coordinate a national awareness around the AIDS crisis that was rampant at the time. The group became the National Black Committee on Aids (NBCoA) and launched a nation-wide effort, through funding provided by Health Canada, to educate the Black community on the risks associated with AIDS. It was through that work that she met and married her husband and moved to Ontario where she continued her work in the Black community, like the NBCoA, the Canadian Sickle Cell Society, and the National St. Vincent & the Grenadines Association.
Yolande came to faith in Christ as a teenager through her High School’s Inter-School Christian Fellowship program in St. Vincent & the Grenadines. Her faith journey has experienced many deep valleys and high peaks and for a while, her walk was more worldly than godly. After the death of her husband and a major life crisis, she renewed her commitment to following Jesus, sensed the call to ministry and began earnestly serving in her church. Today, she can say that she is walking firmly with God and has a passion to see Christ-followers living authentically, changed lives.
Yolande is a graduate of Heritage College & Seminary where she obtained a Certificate in Christian Studies and is now tracking for pastoral ministry with the Free Methodist Church in Canada (FMCiC). She and her family began attending Arlington Woods Church (AWC) in 1995 where she served in several capacities and actively participated in Small Groups and Bible Studies. She currently serves as the Chair of the AWC Board, and the Women’s Ministry Coordinator, also leading a Precept Small Group. Her day job at Algonquin College is the Box Office & Theatre Marketing Manager at the Algonquin Commons Theatre.
Yolande is a widow and has one adult daughter, Yelena.
Link to service: https://youtube.com/live/KLuDBFCmEUs?feature=share
Slide image attribution:
JESUS MAFA. John baptizes Jesus, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48290 [retrieved February 15, 2024]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).