Specialized development partnerships
CUSO-VSO links organizations in the developing world with like-minded groups and networks in North America.
Partners in the North and the South also share knowledge and best practices directly with each other. This approach contributes to a global civil society while creating opportunities for active solidarity through joint work on shared concerns. The role of CUSO-VSO is to serve as a catalyst and facilitator of working relationships between our partners. Here is information on several major multi-party partnerships that CUSO-VSO is involved in:
CJEO Youth Avenue Internationale
CUSO-VSO, in collaboration with local partner groups in the Developing World, supports community economic development projects that create employment for those who need it most, especially youth. Quebec's Carrefour jeunesse emploi de l‘Outaouais (CJEO) is a non-profit organization that supports young adults aged 16 to 35 who are searching for employment, returning to academic studies, or starting their own businesses.
CUSO-VSO and CJEO have joined forces to improve the prospects of youth in Bolivia, Jamaica, Peru and Chile, as well as Canada’s Outaouais region. CUSO-VSO and CJEO will work with grassroots groups in the four Southern countries, helping them adapt the lessons of the CJEO youth development approach to their own cultural and socio-economic context. Methodologies, skills and best practices that have been developed in the last 30 years by CJEO will be shared among partners. In return, CJEO will gain a deeper understanding of the potential and challenges of working in cross-cultural environments.
The joint project will also support CJEO's Avenue Internationale, a program that helps young adults become active global citizens. The program includes opportunities for Canadian youth to volunteer abroad, and improved services for youth visiting Quebec.
Stratford, Ontario-Suchitoto, El Salvador Cultural Partnership
CUSO-VSO is currently supporting a youth cultural, social and economic initiative between the municipality of Stratford in Ontario, and the town of Suchitoto in El Salvador.
Fifty years ago, Stratford was an economically depressed rural municipality in Ontario. In an act of faith, community leader Tom Patterson gathered together a sum of $225 to initiate what would become the Stratford Theatre Festival. The Festival gave its first performance in a 150-foot tent in July of 1953. Now, the annual budget of the Festival is over $50 million, it sustains directly and indirectly more than 3,000 jobs, and injects more than $145 million into the local economy.
Suchitoto, a small municipality in El Salvador greatly damaged by 30 years of civil war, is also trying to improve its economic situation. Suchitoto wants to use the same strategy that Stratford used 50 years ago: leveraging economic development through arts and culture. Suchitoto wants to tap into the potential of its two major assets: youth and the richness of its culture.
Stratford and Suchitoto are now implenting an exchange between the two communities. For example, in the area of skills development, Suchitoto and Stratford are supporting the development of an Arts and Theatre program. It will be part of the Escuela-Taller, a technical school that Suchitoto is developing to provide education and employment opportunities to its youth.
Listen to a podcast interview with CUSO-VSO volunteers working on the Stratford-Suchitoto project to supports arts and development.
International Model Forest Partnership
CUSO/CUSO-VSO and the Ottawa-based International Model Forest Network (IMFN) have been working together since 2002. Many volunteer positions have been created to jointly support the development and the implementation of nine model forests in the Americas. The volunteers also support the Ibero-American Model Forest Network.
A Model Forest is an integrated program of community development, eco-tourism, sustainable forestry and cultural promotion. The CUSO-VSO-IMFN partnership continues, building on best practices from Model Forests in the Americas, and on the lessons learned by Canada-South and South-South volunteers working at the forests’ grassroots.
Listen to a podcast interview with Bob Sutton, a CUSO-VSO volunteer who worked in a model forest in Honduras.
Canadian Community Economic Development Network Partnership
The Canadian Community Economic Development Network (CCEDNet) is a member-driven organization that seeks to increase the scale and effectiveness of community economic development. The membership of CCEDNet is made up of community-based organizations, co-operatives, social enterprises, practitioners, active citizens, researchers, and other organizations from every region of Canada.
Since 2002, CUSO-VSO and CCEDNet have worked together with Southern partners in the Americas and Caribbean region, collaborating on projects that help struggling communities achieve greater economic self-reliance. CUSO-VSO and CCEDNet were instrumental in supporting the creation of RIDELC, a community and local economic development international network formed by practitioners of more than 20 CED organizations from seven different Latin Americas countries and Canada.
CUSO-VSO also supported the creation of CCEDNet’s international committee, which continues to work with CCEDNet’s 700 member groups to facilitate their participation in international cooperation with counterpart CED networks and community grassroots organizations the world over.
Building Nigeria's Response to Climate Change
Like much of Africa, Nigeria - home to over 150 million people - is vulnerable to global warming. In February 2007, CUSO-VSO and Marbek Resource Consultants signed a five-year, CAD$4.75 million agreement with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to help develop a national adaptation strategy for Nigeria. The project is jointly implemented with the Nigeria Environmental Study/Action Team (NEST), based in Ibadan, Nigeria.
The project will increase the capacity of the Nigerian government and civil society stakeholders to take informed, equitable and gender-sensitive action on climate change. The focus is on improved livelihood options, sustainable natural resource use, and governance. In collaboration with many Nigerian stakeholders, the project team is researching the climate change impacts on the country, identifying possible adaptation actions, and piloting these actions in some of the country’s most vulnerable communities. The project is also developing a comprehensive national strategy for climate change adaptation, and will work with the government to turn ideas into policy.
Read more about the Nigeria climate change adaptation project, and how CUSO-VSO volunteers are involved.
