Impact Award winner Joel (Connector) Davis impacting young lives

As a multi-genre artist running the gamut of soca, chutney, calypso and other variations, Joel Davis (Connector) has entertained mainly adult audiences with his warm personality, energetic style and eye-catching costumes for nearly three decades.

Now, he has turned his attention to young people, offering them opportunities to display their creative talent.

Five years ago, he started ‘Empowering Youth Showcase’ to give youths between the ages of five and 19 a platform to perform.

“I realized that far too many young people spend much of their time on the computer playing games,” said Davis who was the recipient of an Impact Award on November 20 for his contributions to Arts & Entertainment. “I have a 14-year-old son who am I am teaching the culture that I was exposed to growing up. I figured I might as well not do it just for him.”

The stage he offers is not just limited to song and dance.

“Once you have an artistic gift you want to share with audiences, I have a space you can do that in,” said the 2016 Calypso Monarch winner. “If you can draw, recite or even do karate, there is a place for you. This is not a competition. It is a platform to face an audience and build confidence. I want youths to know they are worth something and we appreciate them. It is such a joy doing this and I am having fun.”

Alvin Curling presented the Impact Award to Joel (Connector) Davis (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

At the end of the annual show at Twilight Family Restaurant & Bar in Scarborough (the owner provided his premises free of charge for the event), the young people receive a participation certificate and share funds raised at the door and from sponsorship.

Mekhi Bowleg, nine, joined the program this year.

“He’s an up-and-coming rapper who has been uplifted,” said his mother, Shonique Gibson. “He feels good about himself now and more confident. Joel believes in these young people and pours his heart and soul to assist them on their journey in life. It is just a beautiful thing to see.”

Davis started singing in elementary school in Port Fortin, Trinidad.

Joel (Connector) Davis (c) with Angela Charles (l), Natalie Francis, Rita James & Tony Weekes (Photo by Ron Ron Fanfair)

“We were offered opportunities to come up with our own compositions for competitions,” he recalled. “Students would knock on tables to create sound and if someone falls, we would sing about them falling. We did picong at a very young age.”

Singing in the choir at his Adventist church where he became a youth leader, Davis grew up with his maternal grandparents after his mother migrated to Canada in the early 1970s for better opportunities.

After working in the trades in Point-A-Pierre during the oil boom, he joined her in the Greater Toronto Area in 1987.

Joel (Connector) Davis was crowned Calypso Monarch in 2016 (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

Davis said the transition was very difficult.

“With all the wonderful things I heard about Canada, I thought the streets were paved with gold literally,” he noted. “When I didn’t see that, I was ready to go back home.”

After a week with his mom, Davis was on the streets seeking employment.

“She was struggling to make ends meet, so I had to get a job,” he pointed out. “A few weeks later, I got my own apartment. Looking back, I am so thankful that I was able to endure the obstacles I faced without going in the wrong direction that could have easily happened.”

Davis credits his upbringing in Trinidad with helping him to stay on the right path.

“I had to be home by 6 p.m. daily and up at 5 a.m. each morning to walk several miles to tend my grandfather’s cows in the forest before going to school,” he said. “I was doing that at age nine.”

Davis made his first stage appearance in Canada in 1992.

Joel (Connector) Davis performing at an OCPA competition (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

As the only soca entrant in the Jones & Jones Talent Search at The Great Hall, he performed ‘Saucey Winer’.

In 1995, Davis won the Top Soca Single prize at the Canadian Reggae Music Awards and, three years later, joined the Ramajay Calypso Tent. He was also a member of Three Seasons, Kaiso Forum and The Professionals tents.

He was the first artist to win the Soca Monarch and Road March titles in Toronto in the same year – 2005 -- with his composition, ‘On the Road’. In addition, he was a finalist for the 2006 International Chutney Soca Monarch competition in Trinidad and a nominee for New York City’s Sunshine Award for the ‘Best Political & Social Commentary Calypso’.

Six years ago, he captured the Organization of Calypso Performing Artists (OCPA) Calypso Monarch Award.

Davis’ outgoing personality and sociability led to his appointment as the ‘Face of the 2019 Toronto Carnival’.

Joel (Connector) Davis and Vanessa Dupie (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

Outside performing and empowering youths, the father of four children has been an Operating Room Attendant at a local hospital for the last 33 years and a Funeral Director Assistant since 2012. He is also an award-winning Professional 10-Pin Bowler and karateka.

At the height of the COIVD-19 pandemic, the Black Scientists’ Task Force on Vaccine Equity was established to engage with Black communities around the disparities in COVID-19 test positivity, hospitalization and mortality rates as well as the need for comprehensive prevention efforts, including knowledge of the various vaccines.

Akwatu Khenti (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

Dr. Akwatu Khenti chaired the Task Force that was recognized with an award for its significant impact on health.

“We never had this type of collection of the brightest intellectuals to address a problem since the formation of the Tuskegee Institute in 1881,” said the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health Assistant Professor who received the award on behalf of the group. “We had people of like minds coming from different scientific backgrounds focussed on addressing problems Black communities faced and attempting to come up with solutions as it pertained to getting Black people to seek help and take the vaccine.”

The Task Force work was not in vain.

Khenti said COVID positivity rates for Blacks, who make up nine per cent of the population, dropped from about 30 per cent to 12 per cent.

“We were part of that solution and that is historic,” he added. “We saved lives.”

Colleen Russell-Rawlins (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

Other award recipients were Toronto District School Board Director of Education Colleen Russell-Rawlins, Speed Academy Athletics Club Head Coach Tony Sharpe who won a bronze medal in the 4x100-metre relay at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Louis Saldenah who is the Toronto Caribbean Carnival most successful bandleader with 21 Band of the Year titles, Canadian Caribbean Cultural Association of Durham co-founder Kandy Samsundar, Kirk Diamond who won a Juno Award this year in the Reggae Recording of the Year category, the CEE Centre for Young Black Professionals, entrepreneur Marcus Davenport and registered social worker/psychotherapist Sherrie Mohammed.

Tony Sharpe (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

The Caribbean Camera and the Black Indigenous Business Development Association collaborated to host the inaugural Impact Awards to recognize the contributions of people of Caribbean descent in myriad fields.

Louis Saldenah (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

“I usually recognize the names of the majority of award recipients,” University of Guelph Chancellor Mary Anne Chambers said in the keynote address. I” recognized only about half of the recipients of this evening’s Impact Awards. I have actually found that enlightening, refreshing and encouraging. Enlightening because, in some cases, their efforts are new to me, refreshing because I am adding new information to my database of extra special people, encouraging because we are casting the proverbial ‘net’ a little wider. We can never have enough role models to admire, to learn from and to emulate.”

Reggae artist Kirk Diamond (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

Chambers said the award recipients have made an impact through their talent and determination.

Kandy Samsundar (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

“They are making the world a better place for all of us,” she added. “It’s so important for us to recognize those who are making life better for others. And I know there are many unsung heroes among you. I am sure that each of you in this room can think of a way in which you have positively impacted someone else’s life. Your impact might seem small in your mind but what really matters is what it has meant to someone else, perhaps a child, a neighbour, a stranger.

Mary Anne Chambers (Photo by Ron Fanfair)

“Acknowledgement shines the light on role models and good deeds. Acknowledgment encourages those who are being recognized as well as others who deserve to be recognized to continue to make a positive impact on our society. I have heard it said that when we light someone else’s candle, we make the room brighter for all of us. That should always be our goal. It is easy for us to become disenchanted from time to time. Challenges and hardships certainty exist. But I believe it is how we deal with them that defines us and makes us stronger and more likely to persist, ultimately making progress or achieving success.”

Mitzie Hunter (l) presented the Impact Award to Agapi Gessesse who is the Executive Director of the CEE Centre for Young Black Professionals (Photo by Ron Fanfair)