L’Organisation populaire des droits sociaux of Montreal is a social welfare advocacy organization, which today appears original in having kept « by and for » spirit of the pioneering grassroots organisations. We met the staff, which consists of volunteers and paid activists, who spoke to us about their democratic practices, as well as their strategies of resistance to prejudice and to welfare policies that are punitive, stigmatizing and based on surveillance. Lacking in documentation, social advocacy practices such as this one, may compel us to question some important notions in social work, such as empowerment and interdependancy.