WOMEN’S RIGHTS • POVERTY REDUCTION • HEALTH PROMOTION • ENVIRONMENT
VOLUNTEER FOR A BETTER WORLD
Over the last 50 years, more than 75,000 Canadians – about 3,000 each year – have travelled to developing countries with the aim of supporting positive change, and have returned to find that they’ve been transformed too.
Today, the nature of volunteerism has changed, but the opportunities to make a difference, at home and abroad, are greater than ever. Volunteers who go overseas through the nine volunteer agencies that comprise the Global Citizens for Change (GCFC) coalition are active in areas aligned with the priorities of the Canadian International Development Agency: education, governance, health, environmental sustainability, private sector development and equality between women and men.
For example, says Paul Davidson, executive director, World University Service of Canada (WUSC), one of the nine leading volunteer sending organizations that comprise GCFC, the battle against HIV and AIDS is an area in which Canada is actively making a difference.
“The host countries we’re working in are looking for help – not only in providing care at the front line, but also in building strong civil societies that can respond to the
pandemic,” says Mr. Davidson.
“Canadians of all ages are responding to the real needs in the world by making a lasting contribution – I think it speaks very strongly to Canadian values and the Canadian identity.”
The nature of overseas volunteering has changed, he points out. During the 1960s and 1970s, the usual volunteer was a nurse, doctor or teacher.
“Today, we’re sending Canadians of all ages, for short-, medium- and longterm assignments. One of the things that distinguishes the volunteer co-operation program is its ability to respond to local needs, as articulated by our partners overseas, and our concern with building the capacity of the local organizations.
“One very practical example is a young Deloitte and Touche employee helping a women’s co-operative build its electronic capacity to sell goods internationally. There is a tangible, ands-on difference in the economic circumstances of the communities with which we work,” says Mr. Davidson.
Betty Plewes, former president and CEO of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation and member of the Canadian Crossroads International board, says, “In the last 25 years, there has been a tremendous development of local organizations in Africa, Asia and Latin America responding to community needs, addressing HIV/AIDS and tackling the issues of women’s rights.”
Through international cooperation initiatives, Canadian volunteers provide technical assistance to local organizations and also support their efforts with research and by helping them network with other concerned organizations regionally and globally.
“Sometimes people think this is only a question of transferring resources: we have the know-how and the money, and the important thing is to transfer this to people who don’t have it,” says Ms. Plewes. “But this is not the case. We’re trying to move away from this ‘North to South’ pattern. We have a set of shared global problems that we need to address jointly.”
Canadian volunteerism benefits Canada in other ways too. Volunteers who serve overseas are also likely to make a difference at home on their return.
As Paul Davidson puts it, “It’s hard to find volunteers for Canadian opportunities, but when we track what happens to those who serve overseas, we find they’re far more likely to be engaged in their community in Canada after. Overseas volunteering is a way of fostering that sense of volunteerism, of providing opportunities for people to have that experience and come back to their Canadian communities ready to make a difference where they live.”
Gerry Barr, president and CEO of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, says, “This is all about Canadian citizens connecting with others. You have members of the co-operative movement in Canada connecting with other co-operative movement activists in the developing world to share expertise. It’s terrifically reinforcing on both sides. It adds energy and momentum, and creates the socialization of expertise in the most organic of all possible ways – citizen to citizen.”
“Volunteers almost inevitably return more fully engaged – with a new perception of the complexity and gravity of the challenge that face developing world partners – but also inspired about what is happening globally. They become the disseminators of a more complex, articulated vision of the global community, and if we’re ever going to get at the problems of global disparity, we need an increasingly informed public,” says Mr. Barr. “When people come back from these overseas placements, their message is that so much more is possible, and reasonable.”
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