BCAQ is looking for new board members! If you share our mission and values of environmental justice and intersectional feminism, we'd like to meet you.
- We're looking for committed people who are ready to make a difference and support our cause in this period of change and major projects.
- We are particularly looking for people with experience in human resources, shared coordination and philanthropy.
Apply now by contacting acsq.bcaq.board@gmail.com and be part of the change!
Meet our Board of Directors!
Amira Bensahli, President
Amira Bensahli is co-coordinator of the Femmes du monde women's center in Côte-des-Neiges. An active activist since 2013, she has organized several feminist, anti-racist and anti-capitalist actions. She holds a bachelor's degree with honors in sociology and is currently completing her master's in sociology at Université de Montréal.
Why BCAQ?
What motivates me to join this cause is BCAQ's bold vision that goes beyond mere individual awareness. BCAQ recognizes the complexities of social identities and strives to combat combined discrimination. Its anti-racist approach is a strong commitment against systemic racism in health and the environment. My involvement is aimed at diversifying perspectives, combating systemic inequalities affecting racialized women in the fight against breast cancer. I believe that BCAQ can positively influence health policies, raise awareness of specific cultural needs and encourage women's empowerment.
What does environmental health mean to you?
As a racialized woman, my mission is rooted in a feminist and intersectional perspective. For me, environmental health is not an isolated concern, but an interconnected reality. In advocating for this cause, I strive to create conditions conducive to breast cancer prevention, recognizing that marginalized communities are often the most affected. My activism is part of a holistic vision where individual, community and environmental health converge towards collective well-being.
Catherine Poitras, Secretary
Catherine is a communications analyst and content creator with a background in independent media and over 10 years of experience in the non-profit sector. As a non-binary person living with chronic illnesses, they aim to bring awareness about environmental health through a social justice lens. Some of Catherine’s favourite activities include reading and drawing comics and getting lost in the woods.
Why BCAQ?
BCAQ is a unique organization that combines health and the environment with activism in the fight against breast cancer and for protecting the health of marginalized people. I'm involved in environmental health for the health of my niece and nephew, and for future generations.
What does environmental health mean to you?
Environmental health is first and foremost about understanding that humans are not separate from their environment, on the contrary - what we do to the environment, we do to ourselves. Furthermore, not all humans are equally affected by environmental damage, and this damage exacerbates other inequalities. Once you become aware of environmental health, you see it everywhere!
Nancy Guberman, Treasurer
Nancy Guberman was a full professor of Social Work at the University of Quebec in Montreal until October 2010. After her retirement from UQAM, she became an activist worker at Relais-femmes where she provided training and support for groups of women. She has been involved with ACS-Qc since 1998 when she was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer.
Why BCAQ?
I find that BCAQ is one of the only organizations that attacks the real factors linked to breast cancer, namely toxic substances in consumer products and in the more general environment, and in particular endocrine disruptors. BCAQ is also resolutely feminist and has adopted an intersectional vision, which corresponds to my values.
What does environmental health mean to you?
Having had breast cancer despite the fact that I had almost none of the risk factors identified at the time to explain this cancer (I ate well, was not overweight, exercised, did not smoke , drink little alcohol, etc. etc.), I found that BCAQ helped me understand how toxic substances in the environment could play an important role in the increase in breast cancer diagnoses. For me, environmental health implies that humans live healthy in a healthy environment where toxic substances have been eliminated or at least greatly reduced.
Marie Nikette Lorméus, Vice President
Marie Nikette, program evaluator, has a long-standing personal commitment to women's rights issues and has been a member of several organizations and platforms on women's rights issues in Haiti and Latin America.
Why BCAQ?
Once I arrived in Quebec, I was eager to continue my involvement in women's rights activities. I joined the BCAQ as a worker and fell in love with the work the organization is doing to fight the invasion of toxins on all fronts and specifically through the reform of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
What does environmental health mean to you?
I believe that environmental health is the right of every citizen to live in a healthy environment where toxic substances are well controlled at all levels to avoid the risk of serious diseases (cancer).
Helen Kinsella, Administrator
Helen is former vice-president of the pioneering Women's Environmental Network in the UK, with a background in media and communications. Once foreign desk manager of The Independent newspaper, she has also worked for a number of non-profit organizations including Environmental Justice Foundation and Minority Rights Group. She is currently a community interpreter, with training in nonviolent communication. In her free time, she likes to cultivate her interest in herbalism.
Why BCAQ?
It is important to me to be part of an organization that promotes health from an intersectional feminist perspective, raising awareness and campaigning on issues that connect health, equity, and social and environmental justice. My experience of supporting and losing women in my life who have had breast cancer helps to drive that commitment.
What does environmental health mean to you?
It is one part of my vision for an equitable, community-oriented society, based on degrowth principles, where everyone has access to the resources they need to live healthy, flourishing lives. Here, we move away from an extractivist, environmentally destructive and polluting system that feeds an accumulation of consumer goods, and favour actual physical and mental well-being over financial gain.
Eugénie fontaine, Administrator
Eugénie Fontaine holds a Master's degree in Public Health from Université Laval, and has many years' experience in community work in Quebec and Ontario, notably in women's health promotion, research and advocacy.
Why BCAQ?
I got involved with BCAQ because women's health and health equity are at the heart of my commitments. I believe deeply in the collective power of transforming our living environments to make them healthier, more inclusive and more resilient. BCAQ's intersectional feminist approach, its fight against social inequalities in health and its ethics, notably its refusal to accept contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, are fully in line with my convictions.
What does environmental health mean to you?
I embrace a holistic vision of health, in which the environment is a transversal axis that directly influences human health. Taking action for environmental health means preventing risks, promoting healthy living environments and protecting our ecosystems to improve our physical, mental and social well-being.
Honorary Members
Deena Dlusy-Apel
Janine O’Leary-Cobb
Michele Landsberg
Francine Pelletier
Sharon Batt