Jael Joseph’s ‘true island ting’

Jael Joseph is a dynamic media powerhouse and award-winning storyteller from Dominica. With over 15 years of experience in marketing and media production, she has made a significant impact in the industry, bringing Caribbean voices to the fore.

Joseph is well known and loved for her engaging dialogues with Caribbean luminaries, fostering a deeper connection to the region’s rich culture and diversifying voices heard on an international scale.

Her work as a filmmaker has garnered international acclaim, including the prestigious Best Short Documentary award at the Caribbean Tales International Film Festival in 2023.

In addition to her media production work, Joseph is a passionate advocate for diversity and equality. She founded a platform–BlackIslandGirl.com–celebrating the experiences of Black Caribbean people, aiming to unite and empower the community.

Joseph’s influence extends to her role as an educator at the University of Guelph-Humber, where she imparts her expertise to the next generation of media professionals.

Her authentic voice and compelling narrative make her a leading influencer, inspiring individuals across the diaspora. Joseph was born and raised on the North coast of Dominica in a village called Vielle-Casse, and she grew up as one of four girls.

Originally a teacher, her father eventually struck out as an entrepreneur, and she credits quietly observing him as “the source of my own entrepreneurial spirit.”

At 16, she moved to Canada and became a cosmetic manager while also studying medical aesthetics. When her mother fell ill in 2008 with cancer, Joseph returned to Dominica to help care for her, and it was during this period of return, that she fell in love with the media.

“People always told me I had a nice voice, and that I should do radio,” she remembers, “and then I got an opportunity to work at Q 95 FM Radio Station in Dominica, and that kick-started my career in the field.”

Expecting her second child, Joseph returned to Canada in 2017, just ahead of the devastating landfall of Hurricane Maria in Dominica. Armed with her newfound love for the media, she returned to school with two young children in tow and did a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism at Ryerson University in Canada.

BlackIslandGirl.com was launched in 2021 as Joseph’s capstone project in her final year of university, as an ode to herself and the “immigrant, black women that were all around me,” with whom she shared lived experiences. She remembers her time in university as pivotal, where she learned to appreciate herself, especially through embracing her natural hair, and releasing her insecurities.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, she went back to Dominica, and registered her company as Black Island Girl Multimedia. In Dominica, she expanded the frame of her platform, by researching and incorporating the unique indigenous experience of the Kalinago people of Dominica. It was this research that birthed her award-winning short film, “Territory”.

A short film focused on the indigenous people of Dominica, where Joseph chronicles ten days following the descendants of the island’s first people, shining light on their individual and communal challenges as residents of Dominica’s Kalinago Territory, including the community’s recovery from Hurricane Maria and the COVID-19 pandemic.

This film was Joseph’s first submission to a competition, and it won Best Short Documentary at the 18th Annual Caribbean Tales Film Festival in Toronto in 2023.

Joseph has now relaunched BlackIslandGirl.com and the newly revamped site features a broad range of content sections, including Beauty, Business, Culture, Entertainment, Health and Wellness, Politics, and “The BIG Feature,” a spotlight segment focusing on in-depth stories and profiles. In addition to articles and features, the site’s new “What’s New” section provides event promoters with the opportunity to list their events, making Black Island Girl a go-to source for cultural and community engagement.

One of the most significant changes in this relaunch is that Joseph now incorporates her media projects as the main focus of the site, and also features Black men’s perspectives, to incorporate their issues into the platform’s narrative.

Joseph’s prowess in the media is underscored by her belief in herself and her voice. She credits her father’s encouragement, as “he encouraged me to be talkative, and not shy away from speaking up.”

This has allowed her to not only project her voice but amplify the voices of those who are voiceless. “Any time I get a mic, and I have to make noise for a cause I care about, I’ll make noise.”

Insisting that her platform has a story for everyone, she brings together Caribbean voices and perspectives in one place, to create what she fondly refers to as, “not just a Dominican thing, and not just a girl thing, but a true black island ting!”

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