About Us

Laurier Students' Public Interest Research Group (LSPIRG) is a registered non-profit organization that helps to develop advocacy tools and avenues for action. Our vision is to act as a reliable support in building and sustaining movements that tear down systems of violence and replace them with equitable and just communities. We stand for anti-oppression, community care and activism.

LSPIRG offers:

  • Access to programs such as Distro

  • Events and initiatives focused on the social and environmental issues our members care about

  • Funding for your campus or community initiative

  • Opportunities to join our Research & Action Groups or start your own

  • Many kinds of volunteer opportunities

  • The chance to run for our Board of Directors to gain leadership experience governing our organization

  • Access to our Rad Library

  • Guidance on how you can achieve your goals of wanting to make changes on or off campus

LSPIRG is funded through a student-levy and community membership dues, paid automatically by students (with the choice to opt out) and voluntarily by all other community members. While we are situated on Laurier’s campus, we are independent of and operate fully autonomously from the University and are not a post-secondary or educational institute, club or association. As an independent non-profit organization, we are uniquely able to serve both students and community members.

LSPIRG has been operating on the Waterloo campus since 2005 and opened our Brantford office in 2016. LSPIRG is a chapter within the OPIRG Provincial Network. Check out other chapters across Ontario and the services OPIRG provides LSPIRG and our members here.

Our Mission, Vision and Values

Mission: To provide support and advocacy by and for those marginalized by systemic violence by cultivating meaningful relationships, political education, and anti-oppressive organizing

Vision: To act as a reliable support to those building and sustaining movements that tear down systems of violence and replace them with equitable and just communities

Values:

Anti-Oppression - LSPIRG challenges manifestations of violence with attention to the colonial systems and ideologies that enact and perpetuate this violence. We acknowledge that our anti-oppressive organizing must dismantle the ongoing colonization of Turtle Island.

Movement Building - LSPIRG strives to meet people and their communities where they are to provide support, knowledge, and resources that build their capacity for political engagement. We engage in this difficult work because we believe in the ends we seek to achieve.

Prefigurative Politics - LSPIRG is committed to forms of organizing and personal relationship that reflect the future society we are hoping to create through our work.

Self-Care / Community Care - LSPIRG encourages its members to engage in behaviours and politics that validate and honour their well-being and health. We also acknowledge that this work cannot just happen individually. We understand and honour the importance of community care and supporting and showing up for each other.

Environmental Justice - LSPIRG aims to address the ways in which capitalism, resource extraction and colonization impact the land, air, and water. We stand for climate justice and supporting Indigenous communities and land defenders who are speaking out against the ongoing destruction.

Activism - LSPIRG provides its members with the skills to self-organize and engage in actions that advance their political objectives.

Education - LSPIRG facilitates the building of skills and political analysis among members through inclusive and anti-oppressive pedagogies.

Partnerships

LSPIRG has formal partnerships with Wilfrid Laurier University, the Students’ Union and the Graduate Students’ Association, governed by Memorandums of Understanding. We also officially partner with Martin Luther University College.

Plus, we often partner with departments on campus like the Centre for Student Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, the Indigenous Student Centre, Consent is Golden and the Sustainability Office. Off campus, we partner with organizations such as the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region, Brantford Pride, and the other PIRGs across Ontario.

We partner with individuals, departments and clubs on certain projects as well, like how we collaborated with Ocean Miller, Association of Black Students Executive, in producing a film called ROOTS, about the experiences of being Black in predominantly white spaces.