I’ve just returned from the International Volunteer Co-operation Organizations (IVCO) conference in Seoul. It was inspiring to be part of a global community united in strengthening partnerships to address today’s global cooperation challenges. At a time when countries are growing increasingly nationalist and withdrawing from international collaboration, I witnessed in Seoul a civil society movement […]
103,318. That’s the number of people who crossed the Mediterranean Sea to get to Italy from January to August 2017. 103,318 people, most of them youth leaving everything behind, country, wives, families, to seek a better future, a quest that cost many their lives. This is what poverty looks like with its intense despair that […]
On Oct. 11 the world will recognize the sixth annual International Day of the Girl Child. The question many Canadians may ask is: Why does it matter here? The answer is simple. Our words matter. Read the full op-ed in The Vancouver Sun […]
By all accounts, it was a calm night in Ouagadougou when terrorists targeted the Istanbul Aziz restaurant and left 19 people dead and many injured. Among the victims was Bilel Diffalah, a long-term volunteer with Uniterra. When I learned of the attack I was on vacation in France with my family and my heart sank. […]
I was pleased to be invited to the launch of Canada’s new Feminist International Assistance Policy on June 9. It was a proud moment for me, an immigrant in my chosen country, to be among an intimate group to hear the announcement from Minister of International Development and La Francophonie Marie-Claude Bibeau. As the policy […]
I have just returned from Tanzania to meet with our partners for the first time. Our discussions were frank, informative and, at times, difficult to hear. Yet I return with a sense of hope. The context and magnitude of the challenge of gender violence in Tanzania was startling. While Canada is not immune to issues […]
