2022 Laureates

Every year, the YMCAs of Québec celebrates individuals, groups and corporations who demonstrate vision, creativity and an extraordinary commitment to making our communities, our country or our world more peaceful and just.

With peace as their main focus, they invest tremendous energy in bringing it to life. They inspire us and they deserve to be recognized.

Shina Novalinga

Youth Peacemaker

Shina Novalinga, or Teaching Others About Inuit Culture Through Social Media

Shina Novalinga, a 23-year-old Inuk activist and Montréal-based student, gained fame two years ago when she posted a video of herself and her mother throat singing on TikTok. Since then, she has gained close to 2 million followers on Instagram and 4 million on TikTok, where she shares her cultural heritage, a way for her to use her voice and celebrate her values.

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Shina Novalinga ​ | Youth Peacemaker​

Shina Novalinga, or Teaching Others About Inuit Culture Through Social Media

Shina Novalinga, a 23-year-old Inuk activist and Montréal-based student, gained fame two years ago when she posted a video of herself and her mother throat singing on TikTok. Shina has practised this traditional art, which uses breath and guttural sounds to create a rhythm, since a young age. Since then, she has been sharing her cultural heritage with millions of followers, a way for her to use her voice and express her values.

“I feel like our voices—mine, my mother’s and our people’s—are finally being heard. We want to throat sing for those who couldn’t.”

This young woman now has close to 2 million followers on Instagram and 4 million on TikTok, two platforms where she teaches about and shares the richness and beauty of Inuit culture. Since her first video, she has posted numerous others highlighting different aspects of her culture, including food and fashion.

In addition to posting about her roots, culture, and education, she touches people from all over the world by sharing her knowledge and reclaiming her culture for herself.

“It’s important for me to educate others on my platform because not a lot of people know about our history, or know about the Inuit culture. It has always been brushed off. My goal is to change that and not be afraid to speak about it.”

On December 2020, this talented Inuk raised over $12,000 in one week through TikTok and fundraising platform GoFundMe for local women’s shelters. She also sewed 100 gift bags, which she filled with feminine hygiene products, jewellery, and clothing, as well as food and other wellness products.

She recently raised over $280,000, once again through the fundraising platform GoFundMe, for children in 14 Nunavik communities.  Her goal is to provide bikes to youth between 5 and 20 years of age to promote physical and mental well-being. All the money raised will be donated to the recreational department of each municipality, which will manage the funds and purchase bikes for the children of the communities.

Watch her TikTok videos here: https://www.tiktok.com/@shinanova

André Michel

Individual for Peace

André Michel, 50 Years of Painting Indigenous People

A world-renowned painter, ethnographic-sculptor, André Michel is committed to teaching the world more about the Indigenous Peoples of Canada, with whom he regularly shares a way of life. For over 50 years, his work has aimed to introduce people from all around the world to Indigenous cultures. 

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André Michel | Individual for Peace

André Michel, 50 Years of Painting Indigenous People

A world-renowned painter, ethnographic-sculptor, André Michel is committed to teaching the world more about the Indigenous Peoples of Canada, with whom he regularly shares a way of life. For over 50 years, his exhibitions, conferences, and radio and televisions shows have aimed to introduce people from all around the world to Indigenous cultures.

Additionally, he founded museums in both Sept-Îles and Mont-Saint-Hilaire, including the Maison amérindienne. This museum is a space that brings people together and promotes cultural exchanges and sharing. It was created and built without any government funding. The Maison amérindienne is special as it is the only multinational institution managed by an exclusively Indigenous board of directors with directors from five different nations. Welcoming over 35,000 visitors per year, the museum hosts both in-house and travelling educational activities on Indigenous Peoples. Activities in which André Michel has spent several hundreds of hours volunteering per year, for the past 20 years.  

In 2001, Mr. Michel was awarded the Government of Quebec’s Anne-Greenup Prize for his work in preventing and fighting prejudice, discrimination, intolerance, and racism and exclusion based on skin colour, ethnic or national origin, and cultural or religious affiliation.

To top it all off, Mr. Michel served as national president of Artistes pour la Paix from 2017 to 2019.

Groupe 3737

Corporate Initiative for Peace

Groupe 3737: Supporting entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds and providing them with opportunities!

Groupe 3737 is a national non-profit organization that offers guidance, coaching, tools and support for business owners from multiethnic backgrounds. With an ecosystem of over 1,000 entrepreneurs in Canada, Groupe 3737 embodies pride in accomplishment, economic independence, the opportunity to claim one’s space in Canadian society and contribute to its wealth while preserving one’s ethnic identity.

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Groupe 3737 | Company for Peace

Groupe 3737: Supporting entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds and providing them with opportunities!

Groupe 3737 is a national non-profit organization that offers guidance, coaching, tools and support for business owners from multiethnic backgrounds.

Its mission? To become the Canadian leader in creating wealth with sustainable impact by and for ethnocultural communities.

With an ecosystem of over 1,000 entrepreneurs in Canada, Groupe 3737 embodies pride in accomplishment, economic independence, the opportunity to claim one’s space in Canadian society and contribute to its wealth while preserving one’s ethnic identity.

Through their various programs, such as Starting a Business, Migranpreneur, Emerging Entrepreneurs and Fempreneures, to name a few, the organization is a veritable launching pad of opportunities to promote and drive success for entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds. Group 3737 offers training and support to help them launch, grow or develop their business internationally.

Thanks to the organization, over 1,000 businesses and 600 jobs have been created, generating revenues of over 160 million dollars.

Present in the twelve cities with the largest Black communities, the organization works all over Canada to truly change the lives of entrepreneurs from multiethnic backgrounds, who are all too often marginalized.

Frantz Saintellemy, Groupe 3737’s co-founder

Shelter Movers

Organisation for Peace​

Shelter Movers: Movers Saving Lives!

Intimate partner violence does not stop after the relationship ends. Shelter Movers knows this only to well. These incredibly courageous volunteers offer free moving and storage services to women and children fleeing abuse.    

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Shelter Movers | Organization for Peace

Shelter Movers: Movers Saving Lives!

Intimate partner violence does not stop after the relationship ends. Shelter Movers knows this only to well. These incredibly courageous volunteers offer free moving and storage services to women and children fleeing abuse.

This charitable organization is the only one of its kind in Canada, and today, counts on 2,060 volunteers throughout the country. Shelter Movers serves the Greater Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver, and Waterloo areas as well as parts of Nova Scotia.

Founded in 2020, Shelter Movers Montreal Region is part of a Canada-wide network, established in 2016. The Montreal branch is powered by a growing team of 150 volunteers and a few employees, who together have already completed 245 moves since the organization’s launch.

The only program of its kind in Quebec, Shelters Movers Montreal Region eliminates the financial, logistical, and security barriers that would prevent a woman from leaving a violent home, and thus contributes to breaking the cycle of abuse. Its innovative services fill an important void in Québécois society and help prevent an escalation in violence that is common when women leave an abusive relationship or return to the home to pick up their belongings. 

Shelter Movers works with local businesses and community services such as women’s shelters, the police, CLSCs, Crime Victims Assistance Centres (CAVAC), and other organizations that support women who have decided to flee their abusers and need a safe place to go.

Women typically flee abusive partners in a rush and amidst chaos. There is rarely time to gather—let alone pack—their belongings or those of their children.

Day and night, within four hours after being alerted, Shelter Movers’ volunteers show up at the woman’s house to safely move her things thanks to partnerships with local authorities and private security firms.

The organization brings together a dedicated community of volunteers, who have all completed a training on the specific traumas and needs related to intimate partner violence. Allies of the movement, the men who work with the organization have the opportunity to be part of a community that supports women fleeing abuse and helps give them a fresh start. 

Shelter Movers is a story of hope.

Mothers Step In

Coup de cœur​

Mothers Step In: activists fighting for future generations

Mothers Step In is a movement born out of a sense of urgency regarding the threat of the climate crisis, shared by thousands of mothers and grandmothers who stand together to protect the future of their kids and generations to come. Today, the movement is made up of 30 action groups and thousands of other people working together, virtually and otherwise. Their goal is to remind decision-makers that they have a duty and a responsibility to make environmental protection a political priority and to implement bold actions to address the climate crisis and the deteriorating quality of life on Earth. 

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Mothers Step In | Coup de cœur​

Mothers Step In: activists fighting for future generations

Mothers Step In is a movement born out of a sense of urgency regarding the threat of the climate crisis, shared by thousands of mothers and grandmothers who stand together to protect the future of their kids and generations to come. Everyone who shares these same concerns for social and environmental justice is encouraged to join the movement.

Today, the movement comprises thousands of women and their supporters, as well as 30 action groups throughout Quebec, the Canadian French-speaking community and Belgium. 

They strongly believe that the love they bear for their kids can be harnessed as a massive weapon to bring about policy change. Their actions are meant to remind decision-makers that they have a duty and a responsibility to make environmental protection a policy priority, and to take bold action to address the climate and biodiversity crisis. 

On top of local initiatives to improve the quality of life in their communities, the Mothers Step In movement organizes large-scale actions such as the Veillée pour la suite du monde. In 2020, the first ever mobilizations took place in 15 cities across Quebec and in New Brunswick. In 2021, the event was held in 14 cities in Quebec, with more than 400 mothers, grandmothers, fathers and friends also participating.

They also recently made the news, when they helped to organize the Bread and Forests march with the Ma place au travail movement on Mother's Day in Quebec City, bringing together more than 5,000 people. In the face of the growing climate crisis, the Mothers Step In movement plans to continue calling on all elected officials to take real action to protect the health and safety of all kids, with no exceptions.

Past Peace Medals laureates

People and groups who have received a Peace Medal have come from all walks of life: artists, volunteers, community or health workers, support groups, etc. To see the profiles of past laureates or to join our community, visit our website.

2021 laureates

Selection committee members in 2022

  • Brian Bronfman - Peace Network for Social Harmony​
  • Isabelle Lamarre - Société ABB Inc.​
  • Hon. Louise Otis - Mediator and arbitrator​
  • François L. Morin - Borden Ladner Gervais​
  • Fady Dagher - Longueuil police service
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