1.
April 05, 2016
To whom it may concern,
It is my pleasure to write a letter of recommendation for Mr. Christian Holmes, who recently completed a
summer internship with the Social Justice Connection in Montreal. During his time at the SJC, I have had the
opportunity to supervise Mr. Holmes's work and have been consistently impressed by his enthusiasm,
communication skills, ability to think critically, his genuine integrity, and his dedication to his work and his
great work ethic. It has been a pleasure to work with Mr. Holmes this year and I have no hesitation in
recommending him.
Mr. Holmes's internship was structured around the development of one main program called
“Participation­Transition”. He focused on our Corporate social responsibility (CSR) project that relates to free,
prior and informed consent (FPIC) in the context of investment and economic development, and the
communities affected by it.
One of Mr. Holmes's greatest contributions to the SJC was the development of CSR case studies for FPIC
advocacy and education. All of the material developed by our current working group, around the new CSR
program, is the direct result of Mr. Holmes's careful research, high quality and well written content he provided,
and excellent follow­up. I can’t stress enough the need to have reliable and credible research and well written
documents, especially as once made public they showcase the work of our organization and therefore define
before public eyes who we are. With those resources, we developped two guides (one for businesses and one for
legislators) in partnership with the International Clinic for the Defense of Human Rights. As a result of his work,
the SJC has applied for funding to further develop our programs.We also signed agreements with a grantmaker
who judged the project to be a FPIC­advocacy­strategy breakthrough.
This project is a key component for our expansion plans of our human rights education program offered to
businesses and management faculty professors and students. His contribution in this area will continue to be
valuable into the future.
I was consistently impressed with Mr. Holmes's willingness to tackle challenging assignments and his desire to
go beyond what was asked of him. Out of hundreds, Mr. Holmes is one of the most capable interns I have had
the opportunity to supervise at the Social Justice Connection. In addition to being dependable and hardworking,
Mr. Holmes's optimism and friendliness made him an invaluable addition to the SJC team over the last few
months. Please feel free to contact me for any further information.
Sincerely,
Philippe Tousignant
LLM – Chinese Law and International Law
Educonnexion Director, education division, Social Justice Connection
1857 de Maisonneuve W., Montreal, Quebec, H3H 1J9
Email : ptousignant@sjc­cjs.org
Tel : 514 933 6797