OPIRG Provincial began a pilot program in 2024 to help engage our PIRGs, boards, action group members, volunteers, and the wider community. Collaboration Lunches are held monthly to help us better connect and share campaigns, actions, and research work throughout Ontario and beyond! Folks have joined from PIRGs across Kanada – including NSPIRG, APIRG and QPIRG, and we hope to continue these connections!
We’d love for you to join us in a chill online (zoom) environment, and come to share or listen to what folks are working on! Some ideas can include Cops Off Campus campaigns, Palestinian solidarity support, Free Stores, Labour organizing, environmental justice, local community work and campaigns, and so much more! Please bring your ideas, and current work, and be ready to share (in the way that feels best to you) – with folks across the province.
Access Info:
- No specific topic or preparations needed
- Safer space policy guidelines in place for sessions
- Rotating facilitator and minute takers/documentation as needed or requested
- Zoom automatic closed captions
- Breaks at any time as needed!
Full details will always remain updated here (on this current page): https://ontariopirg.org/collab-lunches
When: Date/Time
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
12-1:30 pm ET (GMT-04)
Registration: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwscuqgrzsuHdPM59IdPVChjxUN_T5i3K70#/registration
March Session: Free Stores/Free Markets
Various PIRG chapters host Free Markets – these are working groups that exist to create a consistent, reliable space for students and community to access resources of clothes and books in an accessible, non-oppressive space, and to subvert capitalism and nurture sustainability, waste reduction, and environmental awareness. This month of March, OPIRG Brock will share some stories about the Niagara Free Store, which operates pop-up markets where we give out clothing and household items for free to everyone, with no paperwork or questions asked. They (and we) believe that everyone should have access to the things they need for free! We invite all PIRGs and communities and neighbourhoods to join in this conversation to learn more, and to share stories of your own free markets, or spaces similar in nature!
Upcoming sessions
Schedule – First Tuesday of every month, for 2025 dates will be: January 7, February 4, March 4, April 1, and May 6. The OPIRG Provincial Board will assess these sessions during our annual meetings in early 2025, to determine if they will continue in the same format/dates moving forward after May 2025. Future dates/updates will be posted sometime after April 2025. Please register for as many as you can attend!
Background
The OPIRG Provincial Network is a decentralized body that provides support for, and facilitates collaboration, and sharing of resources and builds/strengthens relationships between individual PIRGs in Ontario. We are comprised of a series of Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) based in communities across the Province. These PIRGs share similar mandates and policies but function autonomously in their everyday workings, and work to provide tools, resources, and support to their student and community members, and Action Groups (in the form of, but not limited to funding, space to hold meetings and organize, outreach, and volunteer recruitment with events and actions).
Many PIRGs link their action groups to the wider community and other student and community groups working on social and environmental justice issues – and often, intersecting – campaigns. These campaigns and events thematically highlight the most pressing issues of our times so as to keep our communities engaged with the social justice landscape of our communities and cities.
Previous Sessions
Special February Session: Accessible Graphic Design – Making your designs more accessible
Tuesday, February 4, 2025
12-1:30 pm ET
Registration: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwscuqgrzsuHdPM59IdPVChjxUN_T5i3K70#/registration
A lot of our work in movement spaces takes place or is publicized online – digital design, websites and graphics are needed now more than ever. But how do we ensure our designs can be seen/read and accessed by all? Through this interactive session, participants will walk away with tricks and tools they can use to make their digital media and designs more accessible, alongside frameworks and resources to continue to expand their learning. Workshop Takeaways: Understanding of concepts of digital design/websites, principles of design justice and accessibility as important things to consider in digital design/website creation; Practical/easy-to-use tools you can use to create digital designs; Tool-kit of accessible design tips and tricks; Practical experience creating a WordPress site designs; Optional (if time allows): Practical experience creating accessible designs
What you need for this workshop: Computer and/or cell phone with wifi/internet access; Zoom/ability to use Zoom; An open mind, heart and body! Be prepared to learn and share with each other – the facilitator is very open to critique and questions, and will support all learners in the best way possible; Optional: Canva account – Create your account and have it open/ready for during the workshop (it works both on a desktop or a mobile phone App) – desktop is likely easier for this workshop, as this is what the facilitator will use; Optional: Paper/pencil/drawing materials (optional – if you prefer to notes)
Access info: No website or graphic/web design experience is necessary – you will have a presentation and facilitation guide to assist.
Victoria Barnett (she/her) is a digital graphic designer, facilitator, community organizer, and collaborator at the service of social justice initiatives. She works with and for community organizations to pull on their own creativity and resilience, to create designs that are accessible, collaborative, and needed. Her work is based on the Principles of Design Justice, a network that she supported as a volunteer, a Steering Committee member, and a part-time Operations and Membership manager for many years. She supports and is active in various community groups based in Tkaronto (Toronto, ON).
You can see more about her here: victoriabarnett.com, or on LinkedIn here.
Special Session for January 2025, Student Film Screening:
Tuesday, January 7, 2025
12-1:30 pm ET (GMT-04)
Film: peace love (unicorns) & communism
Synopsis: chatting with another recent graduate, a former student activist learns about the controversial origin of a now-beloved campus group. she embarks on a journey through the recent past, weaving conversations with a vast ensemble of young organizers into a tapestry of disruption and determination. political, personal & bursting with youthful exuberance, peace love (unicorns) & communism is a homegrown chronicle of a decade of movements at McMaster University. As past struggles echo in the present, the film poses an urgent question to today’s rising generation: do you believe that we will win? (Director/Producer, Adeola Egbeyemi, will be in attendance for the screening and available for questions!)
Film Credits: Director/Producer, Adeola Egbeyemi, Editor, Yasith Weerasinghe
Follow the film on Social: www.instagram.com/peaceloveunifilm
We will watch part of the feature film together, and then pose questions and open conversations on PIRGs as a vessel for collective memory (campaigns, lessons, etc), issues with student unions in organizing, repression and conflict, ways that University institutions disrupt student organizing: tactics of delay, recuperation and pacification but also, trying to find hope amidst all of these issues!