Staff

Gaëlle Javier has a multidisciplinary profile .

Bashir has been working with Alternatives since 2001 in different capacities. He is our Program Manager for the Middle East and North Africa region and was Field Director for the Participatory Development Program, a bilateral project between the Canadian and Egyptian governments between 2003 and 2006. Bashir has academic degrees in psychology, political science and development studies. His doctoral research was on NGOs and development in Sudan.

As a co-founder of Alternatives, Marcela Escribano has been largely responsible for projects in Latin American and the Caribbean. She has been working in this region for years - encouraging social organizations to network and connect with citizens - most notably in Brazil, where she worked for two years as a mobilization advisor for the Minister of Environment and the United Nations Development Program.

Ever since Mélanie discovered the impact and potential of information technology and communications (ICT) in attaining different forms of social justice, she has invested her energy and creativity in projects combining the two. Her initiation to the politicization of ICT came after an internship with Alternatives in 2007 in Cameroon. Today, she is the international internship program coordinator at Alternatives.

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Having been the captain of Algeria’s National basketball team, Yasmina Moudda has traveled extensively throughout the world. Her international experiences allowed her to see firsthand the social inequalities and the injustice ravaging the countries that she visited. Consequently, she became motivated to join Alternatives in April 1998 in order to work with an organization that fights to reduce poverty and eradicate such injustices. She is particularly concerned with issues related to women’s rights in Muslim countries.

Feroz Mehdi is one of the founding members of Alternatives and has been working largely on projects related to South Asia. In addition, he has been focused on education programs within Quebec and Canada by way of organizing conferences and publishing newsletters and other analytical documents. Since 2007, he has taken on the role of Secretary General of Alternatives International. The federation of AlterInter has 9 member organizations from Canada, France, Brazil, Israel, Palestine, South Africa, Niger, India and Morocco.

Khadija Mounib works in the field of new immigrant employability. An former economics student, she has studied in Morocco, France and Canada. At the end of her studies in France, she established herself in Morocco, where she worked in various fields. In 1993, she immigrated to Canada, where she currently resides. Khadija Mounib is the author of several articles on the problems of immigrant integration within Canadian cultural communities and has held several conferences on the subject. After going through the immigration process herself, she joined the Alternatives’ team in 1997.

Catherine Pappas has been working with Alternatives since 1997. Having managed the internship programs and international solidarity projects in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan and Palestine, she now coordinates the Middle Eastern and North African programs. Holder of an M.A. in Communications from The University of Quebec in Montreal, Catherine Pappas has also worked as a director, researcher and photographer on several photo and film documentaries in partnership with the National Film Board of Canada, Radio-Canada and other independent production companies.

Co-founder of Alternatives, Michel Lambert believes in the importance of uniting groups and organizations of the civil society, here and in the rest of the world, to promote democratic principles, equality and fairness for all.

Prior to being nominated Executive Director in 2007, he established and developed various international solidarity programs at Alternatives, initiated innovative global justice campaigns with civil society groups and trade unions in Quebec and Canada, and directed the Alternatives’ Democratic Republic of Congo branch from 2002 to 2005.