Jasmin Roy

Company: Jasmin Roy Sophie Desmarais Foundation

Sector of activity: Promotion of healthy emotional and relational habits

Head office: Montréal

Number of employees: 4

His commitment

Aligned with UN sustainable development goal 3 (good health and well-being)

I commit to offering lasting solutions to develop emotional and relational skills to combat discrimination, violence, and bullying, in all environments.

“The adoption of healthy emotional and relational habits is central to our mission. We are committed to fostering inclusion, preventing mental health problems, and combatting violence and bullying.”

– Jasmin Roy, President, Jasmin Roy Sophie Desmarais Foundation

Creating caring, inclusive living environments

A positive influence on society

Both a non-profit and a community organization, the Jasmin Roy Sophie Desmarais Foundation strives to create positive, caring environments. It promotes equality and diversity, and it shines a light on the problems of violence, discrimination, and bullying in different settings, starting with school. For each case, it identifies and implements concrete solutions. For example, developing a positive school climate involves a selection of interventions that help young people learn to get along better. People who have engaged in bullying or violence are encouraged to better meet their own needs, students targeted by this behaviour to better assert themselves, and young bystanders to develop empathy.

A socially engaged visionary

Trained at the National Theatre School, the actor, host, columnist, director, and author Jasmin Roy has been gravitating around the cultural milieu for over 20 years. The victim of bullying in his youth, he published Osti de fif! in 2010, in which he provided a raw depiction of the homophobic violence he was subjected to in elementary and high school, and his problems with anxiety and depression that would follow him into adulthood. Determined to create change and prevent other young people from going through the same thing, he decided to get involved in social entrepreneurship through his foundation, which relies on the support of its patron of honour, who was also a victim of bullying, philanthropist Sophie Desmarais.

Concrete actions

The Jasmin Roy Sophie Desmarais Foundation helped implement the Government of Québec’s Concerted Action Plan to Prevent and Counter Bullying and Cyberbullying 2020-2025. Over the years, it has also developed tools to promote sex and gender equality by developing awareness-raising workshops, designing virtual reality tools, creating educational and ethical guides, and collaborating on the work of the scientific community. One of the Foundation’s publications is A Guide to Promote the Dynamic Socialization of Adolescents, a marvelous tool for high school educators.