Guide to All ssmu groups

A club for water polo lovers.

Helps students find both on and off campus volunteering opportunities suited to their interests. New options are posted regularly on the volunteer board on the 1st floor of Shatner. Holds a volunteer fair every semester. 

BWV invites students from all economic, social and educational backgrounds to participate in development projects around the world. Through various fundraising activities and corporate sponsorship, we meet for all our volunteers' needs while away. This program is open to ALL students. No particular level of education or skills is required; all those interested in helping make a difference are welcome. Our current projects include soup kitchen volunteering, international project development in Ecuador and Peru, and an immigrant workers center in Montreal.

End Poverty Now is a non-partisan, non-political, non-religious, non-profit Canadian charitable organization that is dedicated to long-term alleviation of abject poverty. End Poverty Now addresses the issue of poverty on three different levels: grassroots projects, education, and inreach.

Habitat for Humanity is an international, non-profit organization that seeks to eliminate poverty housing worldwide. It is in partnership with people of different backgrounds, races, religions, and incomes. Their common bond is that they recognize the housing needs of low-income families, and understand their part in helping someone else to realize the dream of homeownership.

We aim to raise student social justice consiousness by leading Oxfam campaigns on campus. We aim to raise awareness through campaigns such as Make Trade Fair, No Sweat, Control Arms, the Millenium Campaign, the HIV/AIDS Campaigns. We work to promote social justice, defend human rights and towards ending poverty. We fundraise for emergency relief being carried out by OXFAM workers overseas. We also work to bring concrete and lasting change at the level of the university, promoting the adoption of an ethical purchasing policy through our ethical purchasing committee. 

Rotaract is a Rotary-sponsored service club for young adults 18-30 years old. Rotary International is a worldwide organization comprised of business and professional leaders, with about 1.2 million Rotarians belonging to more than 31,000 Rotary clubs located in 166 countries. Rotarians help provide humanitarian services, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. We are a group of fun students who take part in local and global community service, enabling us to develop our professional and leadership skills as well as make a difference. 

WUSC is a network of individuals and post-secondary institutions who believe that all peoples are entitled to the knowledge and skills necessary to contribute to a more equitable world. Our mission is to foster human development and global understanding through education and training.

Meal Exchange is a national student-founded, youth-driven, registered charity organized to address local hunger by mobilizing the talent and passion of students. Since 1993, our programmes have been run on over 50 campuses Canada and generated donations of over $2 million dollars worth of food or 800,000 meals to address local hunger. Our mission: addressing hunger through student solutions Our vision: to help eliminate the root causes of hunger and poverty by engaging tomorrow's leaders, today.

Santropol Roulant is an award-winning community organization founded and run by young people in Montreal. We bring people together across generations and cultures through an innovative approach to meals-on-wheels, and by engaging youth to take an active role in their community. Since 1995, we have delivered over 350,000 meals to seniors and individuals living with a loss of autonomy and offered over 275 jobs and internships for young people in the community.

McGill Students for Literacy aims to improve literacy skills in the Montreal community. Our members volunteer with youth on a weekly basis in juvenile detention centres, halfway homes, daycares, community centres, and the Montreal Oral School for the Deaf. Volunteers also work with adult and elderly members of the community through the Reclaim Literacy program. 

While we acknowledge that Canada runs one of the most comprehensive healthcare services in the world, as a relatively young program we feel there are many underdeveloped areas of coverage that can be subject to improvement. As an organization, we have started to expand the horizons of existing healthcare programs to better represent Canada's sociocultural groups. 

Daraja's mission is to raise funds for various projects in East Africa. Our efforts have helped establish scholarship funds for children in Kenya and build and maintain a health clinic in Uganda. This is only the beginning, and we welcome all input for fundraising ideas and causes we can support. We hold regular events throughout the year, ranging from photo contests to concerts to gala dinners.

Our mission is to integrate the McGill community with local development efforts in the global south. Through cooperation, advocacy and active participation, the Integrated Development Initiative works with students, campus groups and the local community to create partnerships with organizations working with, for and emanating from communities in the “developing” world. We stand behind and support grass roots based community led efforts representing the agency of the communities affected.

Women in many parts of the world particularly south Asia are subjected to persistent marginalization and disempowerment. We at SAWA strive to be able to voice their aspirations, spread awareness about their needs and struggles through various mediums of Art and Communication. 

Please join us for a number of on campus events related to the humanitarian crisis taking currently place in Darfur, Sudan. 

McGill Students for Buduburam Youth is an organization of students that work in collaboration with CYE, the Center for Youth Empowerment. Located in the Buduburam Refugee Settlement, Ghana, West Africa, the Center for Youth Empowerment is a grass roots community organization that is building the future for the men and women who have fled the atrocities of the Liberian war. MSBY focuses on fundraising, curriculum development, and fair trade while working to establish strategic partnerships and local awareness of CYE and its cause. 

SNED is a new student organization at McGill that focuses on building a network of committed individuals who are interested in alleviating poverty through microfinance in developing communities. 

WaterCan is a Canadian charity dedicated to ending poverty by helping the world’s poorest people gain access to clean water, basic sanitation, and hygiene education. The McGill chapter of WaterCan is devoted to supporting the cause by creating awareness of the water crisis through fundraising and events. As a student-organized committee, we are focused on bringing awareness to the student population of Montreal. 

The Ashraya Initiative for Children (AIC) is a home for street kids and community outreach projects located in Pune, India. Currently, we operate three main programs in Pune: the residential program, housing ten kids; the education outreach program, supporting the education of more than 120 kids in the slum; and the health outreach program, promoting improved health in the slum through education, healthcare and community mobilization. Being a branch of the larger organization by the same name, the McGill Branch focuses their efforts on organizing fundraising and awareness events on campus such as a bi-annual Benefit Dinner at a local Indian restaurant, movie nights, and benefit concerts.

China Care is an organization that fundraises for Chinese orphans in need of medical care. We seek to influence the care of as many children as possible, stretching the impact of each dollar donated. China Care accepts the weakest, most at-risk children from the orphanages with whom we cooperate. These are babies with moderate to life-threatening birth defects, and other infants who require a high level of skilled care during their early weeks and months. These children are brought out of the local orphanage and cared for in a local China Care Children's Home where their medical situation is evaluated. Each child is administered appropriate medical treatment needed for his or her best possible chance for a normal, healthy life. China Care’s Foster Program then places the child in a long-term foster family once medical treatment is completed.

Compassion International is a Christian child sponsorship organization dedicated to the long-term development of children living in poverty around the world. Compassion International, headquartered in Colorado Springs, functions in 25 countries and currently helps more than 1,000,000 children

Educate! is a volunteer based, student-run non-profit organization that provides scholarships to refuges and school bursaries to a select few underprivileged nationals in Uganda and Rwanda.

The objective of the foundation is to raise money to create a running fund that will pay for the rent of both a van and a house, "LA MAISON DE SARAH", where children infected or affected by HIV/AIDS can live. Thanks to a generous donation from a foundation in Alberta, we were able to purchase a house. Since doing so in 2000, private donations and support from both individuals and corporate donors has helped us pay the mortgage, make needed repairs, put in a few small improvements and provide a loving home for children who have no where else to turn!

Free The Children is the world's largest network of children helping children through education, with more than one million youth involved in our innovative education and development programs in 45 countries.

McGill Club for Make a Wish is a student run organization at McGill University that organizes many events to raise funds for Make a Wish Quebec. Make a Wish has been granting wishes to children with life threatening illnesses for over 28 years in over 32 countries. Our mission as the McGill Club for Make a Wish is to be able to send one child on their wish every year.

Right to Play is an athlete-driven humanitarian organization that uses sport and play as a tool for the development of children and youth in the most disadvantaged areas of the world. 

Save a Child's Heart is an organization that sends children from third world and developing countries to Israel so that they can receive heart surgeries and care. This group is for the SACH McGill Division. We create fundraising events and promote awareness for the organization! 

SOS is a social venture with a triple initiative: to raise marks, raise money, and raise roofs for children in lesser developed areas all around the world. McGill SOS Volunteers fundraise for their hands-on, end of year, development project abroad through Exam-AIDS, which are review sessions offered prior to exams for a $20 donation. 

Supporting Parents and Reaching Kids (SPARK) serves at-risk families with children 0-5 years old in their homes. 

UNICEF's mission is to protect and improve the health and lives of children around the world. Every child has the right to health, education, equality and protection. At UNICEF McGill we're working to support UNICEF in the work it does internationally. 

War Child Canada is a registered Canadian charity dedicated to providing urgently needed humanitarian assistance to war-affected children around the world. War Child Canada helps generate awareness, support and advocacy for children's rights everywhere. 

YAI is a youth-run organization established to promote and implement programs aimed at making the world a better place for children and future generations. We work to ensure the promotion of children's, women's, and general human rights as enshrined in international conventions. YAI also advocates against environmental degradation, and other environmental abuses that hinder children and future generations from enjoying the benefits of a beautiful world. Let's help children gain their childhoods back. 

The McGill Cancer Society is a student-run group whose goal is to raise money and awareness for the Canadian Cancer Society.

The Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR) is the national charitable foundation whose goal is to raise awareness in order to generate funds for research into all aspects of HIV infection and AIDS. In an effort to help CANFAR expand its activities in Montreal, CANFAR McGill has hosted Affair en Rouge for the past 4 years. All of the profits go towards CANFAR with last years total reaching over $10,000. In order to raise the most money possible at this party, CANFAR McGill organizes various fundraising events throughout the year. The committee meets twice a month to plan these fundraisers and to discuss awareness.

A SSMU club that raises funds and awareness for Cystic Fibrosis.

Dignitas International is a non-profit organization that is committed to fighting the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. Dignitas already has a successful project set up in Malawi, where the organization is working within the local community to train, educate, and increase access to treatment and prevention. Dignitas has a special commitment to "community-based care", a concept that emphasizes the importance of sustainable action that uses and builds on the networks, infrastructure, and knowledge that already exist in a community, for example by working closely with the Malawian government and Central Hospital.

McGill Global AIDS Coalition is an HIV /AIDS advocacy group dedicated to the eradication of HIV/AIDS and to the realization, worldwide, of the right to health. We are committed to helping to create an effective student advocacy network in Canada and to educating the McGill and Montreal community on global health issues.

Keep a Child Alive is dedicated to providing life-saving anti-retroviral treatment, care and support services to children and their families with HIV/AIDS in Africa and the developing world by directly engaging the global public in the fight against AIDS.

The idea for Movember was sparked in 2003 over a few beers in Melbourne, Australia. The guys behind it joked about 80s fashion and decided it was time to bring the moustache back. In order to justify their Mos (Australian slang for moustache), they used their new looks to raise money for prostate cancer research… never dreaming that facial hair would ultimately lead to a global movement that would get men talking about a taboo subject – their health.

The Neglected Tropical Diseases Society is a McGill University-based grassroots collective aimed at mobilizing students and gathering support from staff and administration to bolster research for and promote education about the neglected diseases in universities. The neglected tropical diseases are a group 14-17 diseases, as defined by the World Health organization, affecting about one billion of the world’s population and placing another billion people at risk. These diseases perpetuate conditions of poverty through their severe toll on human health: they severely disfigure, disable, and cause death. 

We are a McGill charity organization raising money and awareness for the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation. Find information on our organization and our events on Facebook. 

Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) is a student organization which seeks to improve access to medicines in Low-Income and Lower-Middle Income (LI & LMI) countries and to increase research and development of drugs for neglected tropical diseases. 

Amnesty McGill is part of the worldwide organization Amnesty International and thus we are a part of a global movement that campaigns for international human rights for all. On campus we work to improve human rights and raise awareness on a variety of issues through: holding demonstrations, sending letters, presenting guest speakers, screening films, holding discussions, and spreading information. Most importantly, we strive to help our members accomplish what they want to accomplish. If you would like to organize an event, or work in protest of a particular human rights abuse, let us know. We can help you make it happen.

The Journalists for Human Rights McGill University Chapter is a group of students actively engaged in informing their community about human rights issues through media campaigns and other on campus projects. Our work includes producing Speak! Newspaper and Speak! Radio, holding amazing awareness and fundraising events, and working with other groups on campus and in Montreal.

A group on campus that promotes the global organization: Medecins Sans Frontieres/Doctors Without Borders.

SPHR is a non-profit, student-based organization that advocates on a strong social justice platform. They uphold the rights of the Palestinian people in the face of human rights violations and all forms of racism, discrimination, misinformation and misrepresentation. Through awareness-raising, advocacy work, non-violent direct actions, solidarity building, and the promotion of Palestinian identity, culture and history, SPHR works to support and protect Palestinian human rights both locally and internationally. 

Best Buddies Canada is a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing our communities through one-to-one friendships between individuals with intellectual disabilities and students.

Big Buddies is a Mcgill Club that provides willing McGill students the opportunity to tutor elementary, middle and high school students in the downtown Montreal area. The subjects range from math to visual arts, it all depends on the school's arrangements. Weekly requirements are that each volunteer tutor at least an hour, based on their own schedules and time available. It's fun and flexible.

Fantasia McGill is a group of student performers who showcase their talents at charity concerts at hospitals and residences in the Montreal area. We entertain the elderly, the blind, or the terminally ill patients. Our amateur musicians from a diversity of Faculties and backgrounds share their love of music, while other talented performers sing, dance, and juggle.

Healthy Minds is a volunteer organization at McGill University with members volunteering at daycares, hospitals, and the Mackay Rehabilitation Centre. Each week members from the group visit with children and plan a session based on fun and educational topics. Volunteers have the opportunity to interact one-on-one with children, and this provides them with excellent experience for professions in healthcare, education, and many others.

The I*Create Club aims to promote creativity through arts and crafts within hospitals around the Montreal area.

The Heart of the City Piano Program is a national program that brings volunteers to teach piano at inner-city elementary schools. Children receive a 20-minute private lesson each week, and are required to practice daily in a practice room available at their school. 

McGill University meets once a week. Our volunteers work with grade 5 and 6 students across Montreal to discuss conflict resolution and cooperative problem-solving skills. As volunteers, we facilitate interactive discussions, games and role play. We are also the first Peace by PEACE branch to offer our program in both English and French, so bilingual volunteers are welcome! 

The union for gender empowerment is an alternative library (with about a thousand titles!); a co-op where anyone can purchase at-cost ecologically-responsible menstrual products, DIY sex toys, safer sex supplies, and gender empowerment items; a zine distro; and a safe(r) space for people of all genders. The UGE collective runs trans workshops for other clubs and services, and every year takes part in the rez project. The UGE also houses a resource binder, a free and private phone line, counseling referrals, and mugs of tea. We are always looking to expand! 

V-Day McGill is group of McGill students dedicated to seeing an end to gender-based violence and is proud to be part of the V-Day College Campaign: a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations, through benefit productions of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues." V-Day McGill joins over 2000 college initiatives worldwide to generate broader attention for the fight to stop violence against women and girls but also expands its mission to include other targeted groups of gender-based violence.

 

White Ribbon Club – Facebook

The WRC is a grassroots movement committed to educating men and women about domestic abuse and other types of violence towards women, with the ultimate goal being its eradication. It's an ambitious plan, but we believe that here in Montreal, by collaborating with Women's rights groups and working directly with Women's shelters that we can have a profound impact on the lives of women across the city. 

Women Without Borders is a student group that aims to raise awareness about issues relating to gender both locally and globally. The women of the world are divided by location, ethnicity, class, religion, sexual orientation, and ideological standpoints. Women Without Borders seeks to explore the possibilities of greater solidarity within a feminist movement by examining different aspects of culture and the subsequent links that can be made between local and international gender issues. Women Without Borders advocates change through student initiatives that lead to tangible results and believes this is a key component to linking academia and activism. 

Simply put, Feel Good Day is a movement that is 100% dedicated to feeling good. It’s about feeling good about yourself, feeling good about others, and just plain ol’ feeling good. No matter who you are or who you are not, Feel Good Day is especially for you! Our mission is to raise self esteem, better the lives of our fellow human beings, bring communities closer together, reduce the toll of the daily grind, and alleviate all the stresses and strains of the modern world.

Headspace believes that there needs to be more dialogue on campus about mental health and the many issues of class, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. that intersect in individuals with mental health. We believe that one important way to deal with mental health problems on university campuses is by establishing a network of student support. We don't plan to replace McGill mental health services, however, we do hope to be a student support network and work with mental health services, helping students navigate the system.

The Midnight Kitchen is a non-profit, volunteer and worker run food collective dedicated to providing affordable, healthy food to as many people as possible. Based out of McGill University in Montreal, QC we provide free/by donation vegan lunches 5 days a week, Monday through Friday, at 12:30 in the Shatner building on McGill campus. 

Positive Authentic Learning (PAL) 
Queer McGill – queermcgill.ca

Hosts social and political activities, weekly discussion groups, and also provides other resources. QM runs Queerline (a listening, referral and support line) as well as Allies Montreal (a high school outreach program)!