Manitoba Council on International Cooperation

Global Citizens in Manitoba

  • Tito Daodu

    Tito Daodu (23) was born in Nigeria and immigrated to Canada as a child, settling in Winnipeg’s inner city. Drawing from a multi-cultural background, she decided to become involved in international issues at a young age – with a special focus on global health. She is now studying Medicine at the University of Manitoba and, upon graduating, plans to practice in Manitoba’s Northern reserves and eventually work for Doctor’s Without Borders. “Young people in Canada have so many options,” says Tito. “They have the privilege to gain skills to help those who haven’t had the same opportunities in life”.

    Click HERE to watch a video profile of Tito.

  • École Leila North Community School

    The middle-years students are getting MAD at École Leila North Community School in Winnipeg. They call it “making a difference.”

    Teachers at Leila North had always tried to raise awareness of global and local issues, but students really stepped up their own efforts after attending MCIC’s Generating Momentum conference in 2006.

    “Generating Momentum really taught us to think bigger and to make more of an impact with what we were doing,” says teacher Miles MacFarlane. “Instead of simply raising money and donating it to charity, we learned how to really educate our students with why we are raising money. We also learned how to communicate our message outside of the school and involve politicians and decision makers.”

    For example, the students at the school decided to abandon the 30-hour basketball marathon they had planned. Instead, they made a video using the idea of basketball to illustrate poverty issues for the Make Poverty History campaign (see http://tinyurl.com/2adeby). They held an assembly to premiere the video and had many guests attend, including school trustees, their MLA, and other politicians. CBC even came to cover the event.

    “One powerful image from the event was a large poster across the entire gym wall,” says MacFarlane. “Every three seconds, we found out, a child dies of issues related to poverty. So every three seconds, a student drew a face on the poster. At the end of the one hour assembly, 1,200 faces were drawn.”

    Since then, the school has kept up their efforts. Most classes scan the newspaper for stories of people making a difference. One group of students takes care of recycling, and collections for Winnipeg Harvest still happen as they did but with greater understanding of the bigger picture.

    Four classes are involved with PAWS—Positive Action in Winnipeg Schools. Some of their activities include visiting care homes, raising money for malaria nets and different charities, or graffiti clean-up in the school and in the community.

    “Everyone at the school is involved with things,” says MacFarlane. “There’s no specific social justice group—it’s just part of the plan and the culture here.”

  • Wayne McLeod

    The Co-operative Development Foundation of Canada (CDF) is forging connections between the Canadian business community and the developing world.

    “We don’t go overseas and tell people what to do,” says Wayne McLeod, chair of CDF. “We have conversations with the local folk, and they run and manage things based on their needs.”

    The goal of CDF is to raise money in the cooperative sector and use that money to support cooperatives and credit unions in developing countries in an effort to fight poverty.

    Wayne is CEO of Westoba Credit Union in Brandon, Manitoba, and became involved in CDF ten years ago.

    “I decided to step up to the plate, be a little less selfish and do what I can do,” he says. “I was in a position to help the less fortunate, and I seized that opportunity.”

    In a cooperative, such as those supported by CDF, farmers might come together so that they can sell their product as a group and also buy as a group to lower their costs. It’s a collective approach to managing their future.

    One of the great advantages of the organization is the expertise available from co-ops and credit unions. In 2007, 23 senior managers and staff travelled to Africa to provide hands-on coaching to credit union staff. The relationship is a reciprocal one where individuals from overseas will come to Canada to learn and share their experience.

    Credit unions are also set up so that people can improve their lives. For instance, a small loan to a woman with children in Africa helped her buy a sewing machine so that she could earn a living for her family. On a larger scale, CDF—with the support of MCIC—helped rebuild the credit union system in Sri Lanka after the December 2004 tsunami disaster.

    CDF maintains a relationship with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) which multiplies most of what CDF raises. MCIC also regularly supports CDF through the Manitoba Government Matching Grant Program.

    “Manitoba is one province where the support received from cooperatives, credit unions, and the public in general has been extremely generous,” says Wayne, “and we’re very appreciative of that.”

  • Rob Pankhust

    As a Canada World Youth (CWY) participant in Honduras in 2007, Rob Pankhurst saw first-hand the benefits of fair trade—goods from the developing world that are grown or produced by fairly paid labour and with environmentally sustainable methods.

    His group visited Coaprol, a fair trade coffee cooperative run by about a dozen families. Not only did the cooperative grow coffee, but it roasted, processed and packaged the coffee beans right on site.

    He was struck by the quality of life and standard of living at the cooperative. “Every family had established housing and didn’t seem to be struggling in terms of meeting their needs,” says Rob.

    “The reason I don’t think it’s a romanticized view is that we did see the other side, where you would see young children working and houses that were in very substandard conditions,” he adds.

    Baldemar Garcia, another CWY participant, is part of a coffee-growing family in Honduras. He says the experience opened his eyes to the value of fair trade, including its ecological benefits.

    “In the future, I would like to work on fair trade projects with my family, and also with a cooperative. It would be different than working on a traditional finca (coffee farm) because there aren’t middle-men. To be a member of the cooperative is like being the owner. You get to share your ideas as well,” says Baldemar.

    Both Rob and Baldemar encountered another aspect of fair trade when the exchange group moved to their Canadian segment in Brandon, Manitoba. At the Marquis Project, a locally based international development organization, they worked at a store devoted to fair trade goods.

    “I improved my technical knowledge and started to learn some of the realities,” including customers who would question the higher cost of fair trade items, says Rob. “Having that first-hand experience in Honduras I had learned that those lower prices are at the expense of people’s lifestyle and livelihood.”

    Rob says the whole experience has made him more aware of global issues and a more responsible consumer.

    “I’d really encourage young people to get involved in the international development realm, whether in the local community or overseas. It’s really valuable in terms of changing your perspective.”

  • Muriel Smith, O.C.

    “Instead of taking our case to those who can do something about it, I realized that I should be one of the people who are doing something about it,” says Muriel Smith, a long-time volunteer and former Manitoba deputy premier and cabinet minister. It’s an approach that motivates her to be an advocate for human rights, and demonstrates the commitment she has brought to so many causes.

    She is a long-time supporter of the international development efforts of the YM-YWCA and MATCH International. She also co-founded and is still involved the Winnipeg chapter of UNIFEM Canada, the Canadian committee of the United Nations Development Fund for Women.

    Muriel attended the World Conference on Women on two occasions (1985 and 1995, in Nairobi and Beijing, respectively). She credits the experiences with expanding her knowledge of the impact of global issues on the lives of women. It also encouraged her to make her voice heard at the UN as the president of the United Nations Association in Canada.

    In 1995, Muriel was among the group of Manitoba women, including 40 who attended the Beijing conference, who founded the UN Platform for Action Committee (UNPAC). An organization that believes there is too narrow a view on economics, UNPAC works to get gender analysis in the budget. For instance, women (and less often men) contribute a significant amount of unpaid care-giving work to society—efforts not taken into account in the provincial budget.

    “We’re trying to take international principles and apply them locally,” says Muriel.

    Muriel also volunteers her efforts for Empowering Women of Burma (EWB). The group’s objective is to give support to the people in refugee camps, to provide skills training for women and children in the peripheral areas of Burma, and to further the education of the youth who have been neglected for more than a decade. In 2006-07, the group received a Community Solidarity Fund grant from MCIC for nursery school teacher training, supplies, and nutritious lunches for the children.

    In 2007, Muriel was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada, in recognition of her efforts to promote social justice in Canada and around the world.