A 25-year Track Record of Leadership in the Franco-Ontarian Community

Prior to serving as Executive Director of the CFGT, Florence spent a decade (2007-2017) services as the Director of French Services in Ontario’s Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services. Florence was recruited to this significant role in the Ontario government in recognition of her outstanding leadership in serving refugee and francophone residents in Southwestern Ontario. Florence would spend the next 10 years developing and expanding French-language services across the province.

Before being recruited to serve the Ontario Government, Florence worked for over 13 years (1994-2007) at the Centre de santé communautaire Hamilton / Niagara (“CSCHN”), the largest French-Language social service provider in the Hamilton / Niagara region. In her 13 years, Florence worked her way up from part-time volunteer to full-time Director of Programming, where she created and implemented new and innovative social services, helping transform the CSCHN from an underfunded regional support agency to a widely-acclaimed trailblazer in resettlement support services.

Fighting for Vulnerable Girls and Women

Aware of the specific vulnerabilities and emerging needs of immigrant girls and women, Florence co-founded the Mouvement Ontarien des Femmes Immigrantes Francophones de l'Ontario (MOFIF) (Ontario Movement for Francophone Immigrant Women) in 2001.

Today, MOFIF has become a major support provider for vulnerable women in Ontario. Last year, MOFIF helped over 2,445 women through its 8 initiatives, hosted 112 webinars on various topics from health to housing to domestic violence, hosted 9 events on entrepreneurship, and delivered 1,600 food baskets during COVID lockdowns.

In 2019, Florence was recognized in the Top 100 Most Influential Black Women in Canada.

A Lifelong Commitment to Refugee and Immigrant Rights, Women’s Rights, and Human Rights based on personal experience

Florence’s three decades in community service and advocacy is deeply informed by her own harrowing experiences as a refugee and single mother. Florence’s 13-year career developing new support services at the Hamilton / Niagara region’s CSCHN began by her going to that very centre as a newly-arrived refugee, having escaped her native Burundi in 1994.

With her second-born barely four weeks old, Florence and her two children arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport seeking refugee status en route to Canada. Florence’s first months in Canada were spent living in a shelter in Fort Erie, before securing social housing in Hamilton through an organization she would later be a part of for 13 years. With no connections and no network, Florence, a single mother, networked relentlessly and left no stone unturned to make sure her kids would have food and shelter.

Compounding her lack of connections, Florence was put to the additional challenge of arriving as a Francophone with no English language skills at a time when refugee services in one of Canada’s two national languages were virtually non-existent. Florence was steadfast in her belief that no Francophone Canadian should be denied essential services, a belief that formed the basis for a decades-long career in serving others. Florence’s darkest moments as a lost newcomer cemented her resolve to spend her life fighting for the rights and dignity of refugees and other newcomers, her small away of giving back to the country that welcomed her with open arms. 

With four biological children, and led by compassion, Florence did not hesitate to raise two more children that life brought to her lap as orphans.

An Unexpected Trajectory: From African Princess to Refugee to Community Leader

Born into the royal family of Burundi as the granddaughter of then-reigning King Mwezi Gisabo IV, Florence was likely destined to join her native country’s leadership class. After graduating from the University of Bujumbura Faculty of Law, where she took particular interest in criminal law and human rights, submitting a university thesis which took her to prisons around the country to better understand the failures of the criminal justice system, Florence spearheaded the creation of Burundi’s first-ever Human Rights League at a time and in a climate where it was unheard of for women to play such leadership roles.

To better understand economic policy and financial management — skills that would later be of immense help in her future leadership roles — Florence was hired to serve at one of the country’s largest banks, where she worked on major public financing projects.

By 1994, however, ethnic strife and internecine violence in neighbouring Rwanda -- the seeds of one of the bloodiest genocides in world history -- had already spilled over to Burundi. Florence resolved to flee her native Burundi upon hearing gunshots in the lobby of the hospital where she was giving birth to her second son.