A non-profit international development organization located in the heart of Ottawa’s Chinatown, has a unique philosophy on how to help struggling third world countries.
Send people – not money.
“We’re not an aid organization,” says Derek Evans, executive director of CUSO-VSO, which is celebrating its 50th birdthday next year. “We have a different vision. We’re sending skilled volunteers as opposed to money.”
CUSO-VSO came to be in 2008 as a result of a merger between two separate volunteer organizations – Canadian University Service Overseas (founded in 1961) and the internationally based Voluntary Service Overseas (founded in the UK in 1958). It has many offices across the country, but its headquarters are in Chinatown, located east of Booth Street on Eccles Street.
The organization’s mandate is to send volunteer skilled professionals, from business managers to doctors, to assist in the development of Third World countries.
To date, CUSO-VSO has sent more than 15,000 volunteers to more than 40 countries. And it’s just one of the milestone the organization has recently accomplished.
Another will be reached in 2011, when the organization celebrates its 50th anniversary.
Diana Sarosi is a former volunteer who spent four years doing research and advocacy work in Thailand. She now works at the CUSO-VSO headquarters and is the project co-ordinator of the 50th anniversary celebrations.
There are several events planned for the anniversary throughout 2011, taking place in cities across the country.
But the main event will be their national reunion, which is set to take place right here in Ottawa. The location of the event is yet to be determined, but nonetheless, it is expected to attract hundreds of volunteers from the last 50 years. A committee comprised mostly of former volunteers is organizing the event.
“It’s really their event,” says Sarosi. “We want them to take ownership of it and make it their own.”
The co-ordinators of the national reunion are hoping to organize a walk the Monument to Canadian Aid Workers, located in Rideau Falls Park. The walk would be to commemorate the volunteers who have lost their lives while working abroad – not just with CUSO-VSO, but all fallen international volunteers.
The reunion will also include former volunteers as guest speakers. Sarosi says she hopes the speakers will help engage people to think about the future of international volunteering.
Evans agrees and says looking to the future is the most important parts of the 50th anniversary.
“Anniversaries are highly overrated,” he says. “You can celebrate the past and recognize all the good and bad things that have happened, but what’s really important is that we take the opportunity to look at the future and the challenges before us.”
Currently, CUSO-VSO sends volunteers to work in six areas of development – education, disability, health, HIV and AIDS, secure livelihoods and participation and governance.
Evans hopes that the organization will expand the number of areas to include issues such as climate change, youth empowerment and inclusion, post-conflict recovery and women’s rights.
He also would like to see effective involvement of the private sector and corporate world in development work.
But he stresses it’s not all about money.
“There are a number of different ways corporations can be involved in development of countries all over the world,” he says.
CUSO-VSO has founded many corporate partnerships that assist in its goal of international development. Officials are currently working with Scotiabank, which recruits volunteers from its own staff to help developing countries, while securing positions at their jobs here in Canada.
Sarosi says the 50th anniversary is a great way to help bring these issues to the public’s attention and to get the community more involved with CUSO-VSO.
“It’s not just about volunteering overseas,” says Sarosi. “We want to get more people involved within their own communities here in Canada.”
Evans hopes the anniversary will increase volunteer involvement of people in diaspora communities – groups of people from a country with a distinct culture living away from their homeland – across Canada.
He says recent immigrant groups in Canada hold the potential to become major engines of development in their home countries.
“We hope the 50th anniversary will get people more involved, not just internationally,” says Sarosi. “But in our own communities here (in Ottawa).”