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.
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.
