page-template,page-template-full_width,page-template-full_width-php,page,page-id-1739,stockholm-core-2.3,select-theme-ver-8.9,ajax_fade,page_not_loaded,menu-animation-underline,,qode_menu_,qode-mobile-logo-set,wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-6.6.0,vc_responsive

Who are we?

Our Programs

Our program values critical thinking in order to communicate and promote intercultural dialogue, while insuring a climate of respect and tolerance.

Our program is available in several community and school workshops.

Community

Our philosophy

Paix, Amour, Amitié, Liberté (PAAL)

(Peace, Love, Friendship, Liberty) These values are the cornerstone of our activities. We consider that interculturality is an asset to be exploited to ensure peaceful coexistence. To get to know and talk to each other, to open up to the world, fearlessly! That is what inhabits us.

Our Mission

Break down intercultural barriers

through an environment of dialogue and collaborative activities. Our objective is to stimulate reconciliation between the members of different ethnocultural communities residing in the metropolitan region of Quebec.

Our impact

Activity Report

295

Workshops/ Events

12725

Participants

Download the annual report

( Content available in French )

Our Team

Direction

Pilar Hernandez

Chief Executive/President

Trained in artwork restoration, Pilar Hernandez has a master’s degree from HEC Montréal in management of cultural enterprises and a diploma from Cégep St-Laurent in cultural mediation. For over fifteen years she has worked in museums and in teaching.

Pilar understands the challenges of our multi-diverse society and is ready to create projects so that each person finds their place in the world.

Rafael Benitez

Artistic Director

With over twenty years of career in Mexico and in Canada, Rafael Benitez is PAAL’s creative brain. With his graphic designing and artistic background, he also has a master’s degree in intercultural mediation from Université de Sherbrooke. Here is his portfolio: rafakir.com

Rafael uses his artistic talents and his communication skills to create transformative experiences within PAAL’s work.

Senior Staff

Yaen Tijerina

Cultural Artist-Mediator

Yaen Tijerina is a visual artist with over fifteen years of experience. She arrived in Montreal in 2017 from Mexico and fell in love with its cultural diversity. “I embrace this city’s contrasts of seasons, this colorful place of different teachings and cultural diversity: Montreal’s mosaic gives us an opportunity to know the world on every street corner and to be able to bring us closer together ”. To see her portfolio, click on yaentijerina.com

Through creative workshops and art pieces she designs within PAAL, Yaen knows how to transmit her passion for art and different cultural traditions to children and adults.

Claudia Nunez

Development Agent

Claudia graduated in graphic design and has a specialization in marketing communication. She enjoys developing unique strategies to build strong brands and strengthen relationships with clients.
She is passionate about cultural expressions, travelling and learning new things. Throughout her professional and student life she has lived in 6 countries and has experienced firsthand the challenges and opportunities in the integration process, building intercultural relations while adapting to the host society. She celebrates inclusion, diversity and equality, and aims to become a change agent in her community.

Claudia will help you choose the best training for your workplace.

Catherine Béraneck

Animator/cultural mediator

As a woman and mother of two children, born on this mother earth, she believes that our society needs love and art to live with meaning, in inclusion of all the diversity at the heart of the richness of this world. Thus, her life path has been centered on studies in arts and communication, teaching and animation with an attraction for everything related to Creative Living. With an unceasing curiosity for other cultures, languages and cultural and artistic and spiritual traditions, she wishes to collaborate in the Awakened Dream of this reality, paso a paso, moment by moment…

Administration

Narriman Buegueret

President of the Board of Directors

Fatou Pompilous

Vice-President

Valérie Boire

Administratrice

Our Story

Challenges and Growth

2015

Established in August 2015, Pilar Hernandez and Rafael Benitez founded the non-profit organization under the name Chilpayates. The very first workshop named Escribir pintando, “write while drawing”, is offered in partnership with the Mexican Consulate in Montreal to highlight the diversity of the different cultures that make up Quebec today through a Mexican tale. Authentic and relatable artistic activity.

2016

The following year, Chilpayates animated 40 workshops for a group of almost 1,000 participants. In addition, the organization published a children's activity book about Mexican culture under the name Chilpalivre to convey authentic Mexican values to its audience.

2017

Having recognized the cultural richness that characterizes the city of Montreal, the company decides to broaden its horizons and offer cultural awareness activities focusing not only on Mexico, but also on various cultures that enrich the multiethnic landscape of the city.

The organization changed its name to PAAL Partagons le monde (PAAL Share the world) to continue its objective: to encourage participants to become agents of change in their community by promoting respect and inclusion, while raising citizens' awareness of cultural diversity in order to live better together.

2018

In 2018, PAAL was recognized as a charitable organization and received its first financial support from the Canadian Heritage for the first edition for its Dia de muertos NDG project. The event was very successful, welcoming 850 participants for a period of 6 hours.

2019

In 2019, PAAL forged a friendship with the Kanien'kehá: ka (Mohawk) Traditional Council, one of the First Nations of North America. This symbolic moment allows collaborations in the form of artistic workshops while promoting the Kanienkehaka culture, such as the Kanienkehaka teachings project.

2020

PAAL organized its first day camp called Des racines aux feuilles (From roots to leaves). The Kanienkehaka Teachings project was also chosen by the city of Montreal as one of its activities for its annual event called Rendez-vous du loisir culturel, Sport et loisir de l'île de Montréal.

2021

PAAL is expanding its horizons and taking a corporate approach by incorporating a service within the human resources of companies in the metropolis of Montreal. Its involvement in the workplace aims to improve inclusion and dialogue.