Our organisation
Founded in 1994, Alternatives Action and Communication Network for International Development is a non-governmental, international solidarity organization.
Our vision
Alternatives knows that, through the development of sustainable societies, another world is possible. This belief is grounded in the engagement, experience, and values of Alternatives’ members and the social movements to which they belong.
• In this world, women, men and children will live in dignity and respect, and will equitably share the power and resources they need to live and thrive.
• In this world, the diversity of peoples and persons will be respected, as will the human, civil, economic, social, and cultural rights of all of its inhabitants.
• In this world, solidarity, cooperation, respect for the environment, participatory democracy, and peace will be the pillars that hold it aloft.
• On this world, founded upon sustainable, just, and democratic social and economic development, construction has already begun at a local, national, and global level.
Our mission
Strengthened by our vision and our national and international experience, Alternatives is an organization that works for solidarity, justice, and equity the world over.
Our aim is to help the networking, building, and promoting of innovative initiatives in popular and social movements that are fighting for economic, social, political, cultural and environmental rights.
Alternatives wants to strengthen citizen action and reinforce the contribution of social movements in the construction of sustainable societies.
Alternatives benefits from the support of public figures with diverse backgrounds, including Margaret Atwood, Gil Courtemanche, Judy Rebick, Ariane Émond, and Stanley Péan from the culture and information world, Madeleine Parent, Françoise David, and Amir Khadir of the social world, and from the international arena, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Asma Jahangir, and Noam Chomsky.
Assistant to the Québec sans frontières (QSF) Program
21 juillet 2010Alternatives, in collaboration with the Ministère des relations internationales, is pleased to offer an assistantship position with our Québec Sans Frontières Program.
This placement will reinforce intern supervision for all interns participating in Alternatives’ QSF Programs for 2010-2011. The person will assist the internships programs officer to plan, organize and coordinate all activities related to these placements, including participant selection, pre-departure training, fundraising, partner organization relations, intern contract management, pre-departure evaluations and return evaluation activities and debriefs. The person will also coordinate the arrival of overseas interns to Montreal through the reciprocity project.
This mandate will be done under the supervision of the International internship programs’ project officer of Alternatives.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
6 July 20101. Partners :
A. Southern host organisation
PROTEGE QV is a Cameroonian rights assocation whose mission it is to promote individual and collective initiative that target environmental protection and contributes to an increased quality fo life for Cameroonian families.
It’s main objectives are as follows:
– to solicit the active participation of development actors and increase their quality of life
– rural development
– promotion of technological research solutions to local problems and natural resource management
– promotion and appropriation of information technologies to facilitate attainment of the Millenium Goals
B. Quebec partener organisation
Connecting Communities
Communautique’s mission is to support civic participation by promoting information literacy, appropriation of information and communications technologies and contribution to their development.
Its objectives are:
– Enhance access to ICTs and to the Internet
– Promote resourcefulness and self-reliance among voluntary sector groups, citizens and within the community environment
– Create a democratic cyber-culture
– Combat socioeconomic exclusion and unequal access to ICTs
1. Partners:
A. Southern host organisation
Réseau africain pour le développement (RADI)
RADI’s mission is to fight against poverty, injustice and ignorance by promoting the participation of concerned population and by empowering and educating citizens to promote autonomy and self-sustainability. The RADI is involved in various areas: promotion and integration of women, sustainable agriculture and food security, national language literacy and basic education, peasant management, youth development in urban and semi-urban areas (education, training, integration, employment), and environment.
B. Quebec partner organisation
Head & Hands’ mission is to work with youth to promote their physical and mental well-being. Its approach is preventative, non-judgmental and holistic, with a fundamental commitment to providing an environment that welcomes youth without discrimination. Head & Hands facilitate social change and the empowerment of youth based on their current needs within its community and society at large.
Head & Hands envisions a society where all youth are participants and are inspired by the endless possibilities available to them.
1. Southern host organisation:
Clubs Kayira de l’Association des Radios libres Kayira
Le Réseau des radios libres is an organization regrouping 9 community radio station (1 in Bamako, 8 in rural areas). Around those community radios were created the Clubs Kayira which are constituted of women’s groups, organizations helping people with disabilities o or organizations of villagers.
The ’Réseau des Radios Libres et des Clubs Kayira’ is a democratic watch dog organisation, its mandate is to raise awareness and undertake popular education on:
– local, national and international news, reported impartially and independently
– Helping bring together large numbers of citizens to undertake civic education trainings to found the basis of participatory democracy
– Take an active part in informing the public health, hygiene and environmental issues
– Give a voice to associations and all citizens who otherwise have no forum in which to express themselves
– Combat the dissemination of ideas and principles founded on intolerance, racism, exclusion and xenophobia
– Opening the radio station to a diversity of cultural expression (artist presentations and musical presentations, theater and cinema) from Mali and elsewhere.
1. Partners :
A. Southern host organisation
Asociación Cristiana de Jóvenes del Ecuador (ACJ)
ACJ Ecuador was created in 1959 and is a civil society organisation working for social change, development and human rights. ACJ works with poorest and excluded of the Ecuadorian society and more specifically with youth and women. ACJ is a oecumenical volunteer movement which belongs to the international movement of the YMCA.
B. Quebec partener organisation
The YMCA of Québec
The goals of the international programs of The Ys of Québec are to inform and educate by encouraging local participation of people on international issues. As well, they develop and strengthen partnerships between local and overseas YMCAs.
Alternatives’ days 2010
2 June 2010Taking a stroll through the endless clothes racks of a Canadian mall is generally not a terribly edifying experience. For some, it’s a chance to pass a carefree day with friends, for others it’s an opportunity to update their wardrobe with the hottest brands and styles, and yet for others, it’s merely a necessary evil: a trip to buy new clothes for their children or for work.
I find myself walking down the dusty red path of Djoumanzana; a “suburb” if you will, of Mali’s capital city, Bamako. It’s nighttime and the only light available is that of the occasional passing motorcycle and the glare from between dark bodies huddled around the television set outside of the local corner store: villagers gawking over the dubbed Latin-American soap operas.
– Location: Taipei, Taiwan, with traveling possibilities.
– Duration: 1 year
– Conditions: consultant position
– Salary: 2000$ / month
– Start date: June 25, 2010
Summary:
Under the supervision of the Alternatives International general director and general secretary, as well as the Hao Ran Foundation, the project officer for International volunteering programs will support the execution of international volunteering programs of the Hao Ran foundation based in Taiwan. The project officer will contribute to meeting the organizations’ objectives by designing, implementing and evaluating international volunteering programs.
Assistant to the environment and urban agriculture program
5 October 2009n collaboration withe Youth Eco Internship Program of the YMCA Canada, Alternatives is offering an assistant to the environment and urban agriculture programs in Montreal
The Rooftop Garden project (a collaboration between Alternatives and the Santropol Roulant) is an unique community initiative who addresses food security, environmental health and urban ecology. Our innovative gardens empowr urban residents to produce their own food, green their neighbourhoods and build healthy communities.
Alternatives is an actor recognized in the field of urban agriculture with its Rooftop garden project, which won a Phénix award in the sustainable development category in 2008, and the Urban Design prize from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP) and the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA) for its project in collaboration with McGill University. Alternatives develops with many local and international partners innovative models of urban agriculture.
Urban agriculture mobilization and education officer
2 October 2009In collaboration withe Youth Eco Internship Program of the YMCA Canada, Alternatives is offering an urban agriculture mobilization and education officer position in its Montreal office.
The Rooftop Garden project (a collaboration between Alternatives and the Santropol Roulant) is an unique community initiative who addresses food security, environmental health and urban ecology. Our innovative gardens empowr urban residents to produce their own food, green their neighbourhoods and build healthy communities.
Alternatives is an actor recognized in the field of urban agriculture with its Rooftop garden project, which won a Phénix award in the sustainable development category in 2008, and the Urban Design prize from the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP) and the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects (CSLA) for its project in collaboration with McGill University. Alternatives develops with many local and international partners innovative models of urban agriculture.
One of the oddest — indeed, surreal — encounters around the war in Afghanistan has to be a telephone call this past July 27. On one end of the line was historian Stanley Karnow, author of Vietnam: A History. On the other, State Department special envoy Richard Holbrooke and the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal. The question: How can Washington avoid the kind of defeat it suffered in Southeast Asia 40 years ago?
Because preserving the environment is not just an option!
31 August 2009
You surely know the Caribbean’s legendary beaches. But did you know that in Cuba, where agriculture is heavily based on pig farming, the absence of a recycling system of manure leads to contamination and disease? ...
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On July 22, a week into Iran’s foreign media reporting ban, a group of Iranian protesters gathered on a grassy hill to speak out against Supreme Leader Khamenei’s continued support for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Some wore black T-shirts with a blood-spattered slogan: "Where Is My VOTE?" By midday, the protest had attracted several hundred attendees. One woman arrived wearing little more than a thong swimsuit and a pair of purple angel wings.
FUNDRAISING GALA FOR THE QUEBEC SOCIAL FORUM
25 August 2009
As the Obama administration struggles to devise a strategy for dealing with Iran’s intransigence on the uranium enrichment issue, it appears to be gravitating toward the imposition of an international embargo on gasoline sales to that country. Such a ban would be enacted if Iranian officials fail to come up with an acceptable negotiating plan by the time the UN General Assembly meets in late September — the deadline given by the White House for a constructive Iranian move.
