This Fall, VIPIRG is inviting students to apply to create a new working group related to VIPIRG’s current priorities.
Working groups bring together students and community members to learn and organize around an issue. Groups receive support from VIPIRG including access to meeting rooms, office resources, webspace, outreach, advertising, photocopying, etc.
Commitments include: members attend one open-house meeting or skills-share per year, having a student as contact person who stays in touch with a VIPIRG staff person, and contributing to outreach.
For more information contact us.
Current VIPIRG working groups include:
VIPIRG’s Research Coordinator, Tamara Herman has made her first short video documentary. Rig Dig is a ten-minute piece about an amazing peer-run service for people who use illicit drugs in Victoria, Coast & Straights Salish Territories…
Measuring Sustainability at the University of Victoria VIPIRG and the University of Victoria Sustainability Project (UVSP) undertook a large, year long project to measure the sustainability of our university. This project has expanded and is now the work of other groups on campus. The tool being used for this project is the Campus Sustainability Assessment [...]
Media Watch Media Watch was a longstanding VIPIRG working group in the 1990s. Media Watch worked to challenge inaccurate and distorted journalism; to help people critically analyze media reports; and to build support for alternative, community-driven forms of media. This and similar campaigns were successful in greatly increasing public awareness of the corporate agenda driving [...]
VIPIRG’s Alternative Economics committee initially focused on public education about alternatives to capitalist economics. Out of interest in gaining hands-on experience, committee members organized Amaranth, a food-buying group and store promoting organic foods. When Amaranth first began in 1995, there were virtually no local outlets for affordable organic dry goods. The food-buying group quickly grew [...]
While there has been an increase in fairly traded goods available in Victoria and at UVic, there is still much to be done to increase the awareness and market share of these ethical products. From Sep 2005-April 2006 Ian Hussey, co-founder of the Canadian Fair Trade Network and a Masters student at UVic, coordinated a [...]
No-One Is Illegal (NOII) No-One Is Illegal (NOII) advocates, educates, and raises funds to address immgration and refugee issues in Canada. We act in solidarity with groups across the country who provide hands-on support to people unfairly impacted by Canada’s immigration and security legislation. Some of our efforts include lobbying for fair trials and status [...]
The Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Working Group came together in September 2005. IPSWG aims to create opportunities for Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members to participate in education and action against colonization and in support of Indigenous peoples’ inherent right to self-determination and self-governance of Indigenous territory. IPSWG Working Mandate The Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Working Group acknowledges [...]
SAMD campaigned from 2003 to 2005 to oppose Canada’s involvement in the U.S. Missile Defence program. Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade: History of America’s space program [PDF] In 2005, after widespread opposition throughout Canada that included street demonstrations, letter writing campaigns, lobbying of federal politicians, and community forums, the Prime Minister at the time, [...]
The Local/Global working group was created to help find positive choices in a world where communities are losing the “commons” to corporate globalization. From 2002-2003, Local/Global ran a Blood Diamonds campaign calling for Canadian jewellers to regulate diamond imports. “Blood diamonds” are diamonds sold by mercenary armies in Angola, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of [...]
