Founded in the fall of 2014, the Maritime Institute for Civil Society (MIRCS Institute) is a provincial organization devoted to research, education, and the development of social infrastructure for the renewal of civil society.
Civil society occupies a place in two rather different conceptions of social life. In the one, it refers to an order distinct from both the market and the state; in the other, it refers to an order of civility and sociability. These are connected as means is to end. The renewal and strengthening of a distinct order is a means, not the only means but one that is indispensable, to a convivial society upholding the dignity and worth of all people.
The Institute is a non-profit, and set up as a registered society. We see ourselves as a meaning-making institution.
Anna Leonowens is known in Nova Scotia as one of the organizers of the Victoria School of Art (now NSCAD University) in 1887. She subsequently became involved in organizing the Women's Suffrage Association, where she became the first President. Although Anna was not to live to see it, the political coalition behind women's suffrage was eventually successful with the passing of the Nova Scotia Franchise Act of 26 April, 1918.
