Durham College is hosting its first Social Justice Week.
From Jan. 28 to Jan. 30, families that have been impacted by incarceration are speaking about their experiences, with activists, advocates, educators and community leaders making presentations, as well as hosting workshops and film screenings.
That includes a local man who shared a story about his brother, who died while in a Lindsay jail.
Not a day goes by that Yusuf Faqiri doesn’t think about his brother, Soleiman. And three years after his death, he says he’s still fighting for accountability.
“Lindsay’s literally in my backyard, about 30 minutes from here,” said Yusuf Faqiri, representing the Justice for Soli campaign.
“We grew up in Pickering-Ajax, and Ontario Shores, where Soleiman was supposed to be taken care of, is literally a stone’s throw away,”
The Faqiri family says Soleiman, who they say had a history of schizophrenia, died at the hands of corrections officers while awaiting transfer to a mental health hospital.
He was 30 years old.
“This has to stop. People with mental illness should be in hospitals, not in jails and given to their families in body bags,” said Faqiri.
“We will continue to fight until our demands are met.”
Julianna Alaimo, meanwhile, is studying addictions and mental health at Durham College.
She’s one of several students who went to the presentation to learn more about others’ first-hand experiences.
“You hear about mental illness in the school, you hear it everywhere else, but people don’t usually hear it in a jail setting,” said Alaimo.
“I can’t believe something like this happened in our country,” added Michael LeBlanc, a Durham College student who studies social services.
“This kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen anywhere.”
In addition to mental illness and incarceration, presentations are also being done on harm reduction.
“We recognize that this happens here in our community, we recognize that these are conversations that we need to be having in our community, and as much as it’s a global issue, it’s also a local issue,” said Allison Hector-Alexander, director of diversity, inclusion and transitions at Durham College and co-chair of Social Justice Week.
As for Faqiri, he does a number of these talks each year — talks he says never get easier.
“We often make a mistake with people with mental illness,” he said.
“We let the illness define them, and Soleiman was someone who transcended that and he showed our family, made us better people today because of that illness and he didn’t let the illness define him.”
The college says it’s hoping to make Social Justice Week an annual event.