Introducing Dignity and Joy, a podcast from FoodShare.
Take a seat at our table as we dig into conversations with local food justice activists. You'll hear from host Sheldomar Elliot and a range of exciting guests working in food and community spaces.
This podcast was produced in collaboration with the team at Lead Podcasting.
All episode transcripts are available at foodshare.net/podcast.
Episodes also available on FoodShare's Youtube channel.
Neighbour is a verb: Doing what needs to be done for each other
Rania El Mugammar sits down with host Sheldomar Elliott on this episode of Dignity and Joy, recorded live at FoodShare’s 2025 Annual General Meeting.
Their dynamic, far-reaching conversation touches on a host of topics from Toronto’s pettiness over patties to what we all ought to know about the dire humanitarian crisis unfolding in Sudan.
As many people’s ‘internet neighbour,’ the social media social justice educator and — let’s be real — icon, makes the case that building momentum for change isn’t glamorous; it’s ordinary people doing ordinary things.
Rania, Sudanese-Canadian artist and abolitionist, talks about the aunties who taught her that what we call mutual aid today has always existed in the form of doing what needs to be done for one another. She and Sheldomar discuss the price we pay when we aren’t accountable to our neighbours: unmet needs, isolation and loneliness, and the importance of finding your people and organizing with them, regularly.
Rania encourages the pod’s audience to look at solidarity not as a concept to believe in but a series of actions we take everyday to show up for our communities.
19 Nov 2025
The view from here: Life on the frontlines of land and water defence
On this episode of Dignity and Joy, land and water defender and health activist Judy Da Silva joins host Sheldomar Elliott to discuss the wins she has seen her community achieve in protecting their home of Asubpeeschoseewagong First Nation territory (also known as Grassy Narrows First Nation) and the many threats they continue to face.
Judy and the people of Grassy Narrows were thrust into a lifetime of advocacy when Dryden Chemicals Ltd. dumped waste into the surrounding English-Wabigoon river system, creating a decades-old mercury crisis. Herself a survivor of mercury poisoning, Judy describes how hard the community has had to fight for government accountability and support, all the while facing continued logging and mining infringements on their land.
A respected elder, the soft-spoken but lionhearted Judy joined the conversation from a small wooden cabin on the frontlines of the Highway 671 blockade, the longest in Ontario’s history. She describes how preventing 20 years worth of industrial encroachment has restored some of the local ecosystem, offering a more peaceful place for people and animals alike.
It’s both a heartening reminder of the power of collective resistance and a call to action for every one of us listening to keep up the fight for land back, in Grassy Narrows and beyond.
13 Sept 2024
Harvesting freedom: The fight for migrant farm worker rights
For our first-ever in-person recording of Dignity and Joy, migrant rights activist Gabriel Allahdua sits down in the studio with host Sheldomar Elliott to discuss migrant worker rights in the context of Canada’s deeply flawed approach to staffing the agriculture sector. Gabriel shares the ups and downs of his relationship with this country as an immigrant and former migrant agricultural worker. The conversation came fresh off the drop of a United Nations report denouncing Canada’s temporary foreign worker program as a “breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery” and citing wage theft, excessive work hours and physical abuse among the conditions migrants are forced to endure. Gabriel makes clear that while this isn’t news to him and his comrades who have long been advocating against the abuses toward migrant workers, it is crucial that we continue increasing awareness and ending the silence around the harms caused by the agriculture industry in Canada, and demand better for the workers who make it possible to put food on our tables.
Thanks to the Digital Innovation Hub at the Toronto Public Library for providing the space to record this episode. Check out this great, FREE resource at select branches (https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/using-the-library/computer-services/innovation-spaces/digital-innovation-hubs.jsp) across the city!
Full episode transcripts available at foodshare.net/podcast (http://foodshare.net/podcast)
17 Jul 2024
No one left behind: Building collective power across communities
On this episode of Dignity and Joy, housing rights activist Lorraine Lam joins host Sheldomar Elliott to discuss the growing housing crisis and its effects on our most made-vulnerable neighbours. Reflecting on her decade as an outreach worker and case manager with folks who are precariously housed and unhoused in Toronto, Lorraine describes her personal journey into this work and her experiences changing hearts and minds when it comes to houselessness. Throughout the conversation, Lorraine and Sheldomar make links between housing precarity, poverty and food insecurity, painting a clear picture of how all three are the result of failed systems, not people. Appreciating how easy it can be to feel overwhelmed when it comes to making a dent in the social inequities all around us, Lorraine leaves listeners with some tangible ways we can take action in our own backyards to ensure we build a city where everyone has a place to call home.
Full episode transcripts available at foodshare.net/podcast (https://foodshare.net/podcast)
30 Apr 2024
Seeds of solidarity: On connection, resistance and preserving Palestinian foodways
This conversation between Dignity and Joy’s host Sheldomar Elliott and guest Vivien Sansour — Palestinian artist, storyteller, researcher and conservationist — will break listeners’ hearts and put them back together again. In the face of the ongoing violence and occupation in her home country, Vivien, founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library, generously takes the time to share the lessons she has learned through her fight to retain and sustain culturally significant food relics. As Vivien and Sheldomar discuss the ways our climate, and society (for better or worse), continue to change, Vivien stresses the importance of taking action now; not waiting to create the change we wish to see. Inspiring us with an Arabic saying “البطن بستان” or “albatn bustan” meaning “the belly is a garden”, she reminds us that we are all connected and that our own existence need not negate the existence of another.
Full episode transcripts available at foodshare.net/podcast (https://foodshare.net/podcast)
26 Apr 2024
Food just futures: Manifesting the Toronto we want
Host Sheldomar Elliott is joined by colleague Hansel Igbavboa, Right to Food Campaign Coordinator at FoodShare, to reflect on some of the wisdom shared by the constellation of brilliant folks who make up the FoodShare universe. Equipped with clips from discussions at FoodShare’s 2023 virtual Annual General Meeting and 2021 Right to Food Town Hall, they discuss the necessity of a food just future. Along with insight from activists, farmers, educators and more, guest Hansel tells it like it is, and how it ought to be. Listening to the determination of these two collaborators to advance food sovereignty will light a fire in your belly to get to work manifesting the Toronto you want, too.
Full episode transcripts available at foodshare.net/podcast (https://foodshare.net/podcast)
3 Mar 2023
Change is possible: The importance of values-forward leadership
In this episode of Dignity and Joy, host Sheldomar Elliott chats with Paul Taylor, who served as Executive Director of FoodShare for nearly six years. Hear all about Paul’s early career days, his time at FoodShare and beyond, as well as his journey as a Black leader having a seat at (or dancing on!) the table while serving up food justice.
Full episode transcripts available at foodshare.net/podcast (//foodshare.net/podcast)
17 Feb 2023
In my backyard: Urban hens, community food and learning as you grow
On this very special episode of Dignity and Joy, recorded live at FoodShare's 2022 Annual General Meeting, host Sheldomar Elliott chats with Ohemaa Boateng, Executive Director of Black Creek Community Farm. Hear all about Ohemaa's backyard garden, her family's hens Marshmallow and Chickaletta, and how youth and elders are connecting around food in the Jane and Finch community.
Full episode transcripts available at foodshare.net/podcast (//foodshare.net/podcast).
16 May 2022
Food price peril: Community solutions for a fairer food system
In the final episode of season 1 of Dignity and Joy, host Sheldomar Elliott speaks with Laura Hammond, Co-Founder of the Birchmount Community Action Council and mom of 6. Laura discusses her life and her work, and how her community came together amid the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on food insecurity.
Full episode transcripts available at https://foodshare.net/podcast/ (Full episode transcripts available at https://foodshare.net/podcast/)
9 May 2022
The kids are alright: Black youth and food sovereignty
In this episode of Dignity and Joy, host Sheldomar Elliott sits down with Sheldon Caruana, a young activist passionate about strengthening Black communities through agriculture and education. Sheldon discusses his experience with community-based research on food insecurity and his time as Coordinator at the Black Youth Farming Collective.
Full episode transcripts available at https://foodshare.net/podcast/ (https://foodshare.net/podcast/)
2 May 2022
Building relations: Black and Indigenous land and food solidarity
In this episode of Dignity and Joy, host Sheldomar Elliott speaks with Jaelyn Jarrett, an Afro-Indigenous activist who grew up in Nain, Nunatsiavut. Jaelyn discusses her experience being mixed race Guyanese and Inuk, and how food can act as a tool for bringing communities together and closer to their culture and histories.
Full episode transcripts available at https://foodshare.net/podcast/ (https://foodshare.net/podcast/)
18 Apr 2022
Dignity and Joy Trailer
Introducing Dignity and Joy, a podcast from FoodShare.
Take a seat at our table as we dig into conversation with local food justice activists. You'll hear from host Sheldomar Elliot and guests Jaelyn Jarrett, Sheldon Caruana, and Laura Hammond.
This podcast was produced in collaboration with the team at Lead Podcasting. Trailer voiced by Renée D'Souza, Communications Coordinator at FoodShare.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Spotify
5.0 / 5
6 ratings
Contact Dignity and Joy
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of Dignity and Joy?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
