捆绑SM社区

I have now completed my summer internship and am happy to announce that this has been a very productive experience! I interned with Fondation 脡mergence, a non-profit based in Montreal that works to combat homophobia and transphobia through education, support, and awareness. As an Intern, I was tasked with the project 鈥淔rancophonie LGBT au Canada.鈥� Through this project, I conducted research on the challenges and circumstances of francophone LGBT organisations outside of Quebec (FLOOQs). With this data, I created the first draft of a final report that Fondation 脡mergence can submit to the federal government as evidence of the needs of these minority communities within Canada.

I began by creating a list of FLOOQs by combing through pre-existing databases, such as le R茅seau Enchant茅 and le R茅seau Dignit茅 Canada. Once I had that list, I used the snowball research method to email the larger FLOOQs and provincial and territorial francophone associations to see if they could refer me to any other smaller organisations. I also spoke to team members at Fondation 脡mergence who provided me with contacts they previously worked with. I then mapped this data onto Google Maps software to create an interactive map to access both virtual and in-person resources.

Throughout this internship, I was working closely with a team. To prepare for the research, they asked me to produce a literature review to situate our work in a particular academic and political context. To do so, I consulted databases such as 脡rudit and GALE to find related material. Given this topic is relatively under-researched, I also drew on digital newspaper articles and research dissertations. Once I had collected my sources, I wrote out a 3-page literature review. Alongside this, we successfully planned our research questions: 鈥淨ue sont les d茅fis primaires que les organismes francophones et LGBTQ+ hors du Qu茅bec rencontrent? De quoi ont-ils besoin pour surmonter ces d茅fis? Comment est-ce-que le gouvernement f茅d茅ral peut agir pour mieux soutenir ces organisations?鈥� We then conducted interviews with select organisations to follow participatory research principles wherein we, as outsiders with easier access to resources, could mitigate the power imbalance of the researcher-subject dynamic through an open loop of feedback and discussion. After transcribing the interviews, I analysed the data to create seven general codes through which to discuss my findings. This culminated in a 26-page document, written entirely in French.

There were some challenges with this internship. This internship was conducted entirely in French- as such, I had to work to practise my spoken and written French, and particularly my comprehension skills. However, as the internship progressed, I have seen significant improvement, not only in my comprehension, but also in my ability to speak using conversational grammar and vocabulary. This is evidenced by my presentation of final work to the team.

In addition, I worked with the team at multiple community events conducted in French. These included a commemorative service for a Governor of the organisation, community day at Pride, and walking in the Pride Parade. My responsibilities included creating a welcoming environment, sharing information about the organisation, and helping to coordinate other volunteers.