Listening Beyond

In this episode, Arwa and Iléana interview Norman Nawrocki, a part-time professor at Concordia in Community Economic Development program, an artist, and an activist who participated in the Quebec Student Strike of 2012. The interview begins with a few questions about his personal perspective of life and what has brought him to where he is now in activism. Then the two students start getting into m...

L'action militante en matière d'éducation: Une entrevue avec Julie Robert par Arianne Chagnon, Melissa Spiridigliozzi et Shinder Virdi Julie Robert est une enseignante de secondaire 5 en Monde Contemporain et en Droit, à l’école Polyvalente Sainte-Thérèse. Dans cette entrevue, Julie partage avec nous son univers en tant que militante pour le progrès social. Elle nous fait part de ses expériences p...

In this episode, Cassandra, Milan and Lukas interview Ana Amaya, a member of a food security organization called Chic Resto Pop, a social economy enterprise. We begin the interview with a brief description of her childhood growing up in El Salvador and her family life, which has greatly contributed to her outworld paradigm and critique of political and economic systems.

Scott Adams & Abigail Lalonde interview lawyer and former CSU president Lex Gill, where she reflects upon her activism during Quebec's 2012 Student Strike. As we approach its ten-year anniversary, our conversation centres the strike and touches on opportunity in differences, lessons learned from SCPA, and the importance of grounding oneself in community.

Mr. Alix Adrien, advocate for educational reform for the English-speaking Black community, discusses collectivization and policy. We spoke to Mr. Adrien about his upbringing, mentorship with youth and involvement as the President of the Quebec Board of Black Educators (QBBE) as well as his earlier work with the Negro Community Center of Montreal (NCC). Throughout the interview Mr. Adrien highlight...

Carolyn Gehr, better known as Ms. Gehr, is an Orthodox Jewish woman and teacher at a public English school in Montreal who took a stand against Bill 21 when it was proposed in 2019. Ms. Gehr shares what type of environment she fosters for her students, how she got involved in this movement, and her experience advocating for religious freedom in Quebec.

On this episode of Listening Beyond, Margo, Nathalie and Emilie chatted with David Chapman, the director at Resilience Montreal. Chapman reflects on his religious beginnings, recounts stories of his early work with Indigenous communities, discusses the difficulties of running a homeless resource in the middle of the city of Montreal, and speaks on his close relationship with the homeless community...

In this episode, Daniel Pungaru and Valérie Séguin meet Nakuset, a Cree Indigenous advocate from Lac la Ronge, Saskatchewan, and the executive director of the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal. They interview Nakuset about her practice as an advocate and about systemic racism in Quebec healthcare’s system.

Director and screenwriter Sophie Deraspe's characters inspire us with their force of will and their righteous path in the face of repression. We sat down with Deraspe to talk about her celebrated heroine Antigone and her documentary, The Anima Profile. Though she doesn’t self-describe as an activist, Sophie’s catalogue of work moves us to act for fairness, challenge the status quo and break down d...

In this episode, we interview Elysha Del Giusto-Enos on the intersections between activism, journalism, communications, and women’s rights. We discuss the process of creating a platform for communication and the implications this has for trying to make the world a better place. As women, we are often discouraged from speaking up and taking a stand against uncomfortable situations. Whether it’s at...

Izzy Kamikaze grew up in a rural Catholic trade union household in the 1960s and spent the next five decades hellraising in and out of civil rights movements in Ireland. From the origin of the Pride marches in Ireland to the popular movement that successfully overturned the criminalization of abortion, Izzy talks about the constraints of institutionalizing activism and invites us to play “a few mo...