Geneviève Talbot, Program Officer for Emergency Relief
I have arrived in Burkina. It was more or less of a chaotic arrival! I was meant to fly to Bamako, Mali, to later travel to Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, but the situation being what it is, the flight to Bamako was cancelled and I landed directly in Ouaga. Fortunately, our partner OCADES knew what to do and I found myself in good hands!
Suzanne Slobodian, Fundraising Officer, Major Gifts
It is with this cry of the heart that a major donor (who prefers to remain anonymous) closed the meeting that we had with her last Friday (May 4th), to thank her for an important gift she made for a project involving youth in the Palestinian Territories.
I was there with one of my colleagues from International Programs, Sonia Lebesgue, Program Officer for the Middle East, and Monica Lambton, a very active member of Development and Peace, who lived in Jerusalem for a few years.
The Association québécoise des organismes de coopération internationale (AQOCI) is hosting a Forum on Haiti on May 9th and 10th to discuss the work of the various organizations from Quebec and Canada that are working on post-earthquake reconstruction and development projects in Haiti. The AQOCI is bringing these actors together to dialogue on lessons learned from the field, and to ensure that Haitians are the ones guiding the process.
Guy Des Aulniers, Program Officer for Emergency Relief
I am writing my last blog post from home in Montreal. With the airport in Bamako closed, I was driven by our friends at Caritas Mali to neighbouring Burkina Faso (14 hours) so that I could fly back to Montreal from Ougadougou.
Guy Des Aulniers, Program Officer for Emergency Relief
Monday 4 p.m. and the first shots are heard. In these circumstances, we always ask ourselves if this noise is simply a car engine exploding. But after the 10th detonation in 15 minutes, we no longer ask ourselves this question. For a moment, there is a lull, but the shots begin again around 7 p.m. I was at a restaurant with Gaston Goro, Emergencies Coordinator with Caritas Mali. We were meant to go pick up Ary from the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB), who was arriving that night, but his flight was delayed by a sand storm that hit Bamako.
Guy Des Aulniers, Program Officer for Emergency Relief
I spent my first day in Bamako with Gaston Goro, the Emergencies Coordinator at Caritas Mali, and Mamadou Diakité, an accountant with the organization. Caritas Mali was the first Caritas in the region to launch an appeal for aid to go towards the current food crisis here, but the response of the Caritas network – and the international community - has been slow.
Guy Des Aulniers, Program Officer for Emergency Relief
It seems like just yesterday that I was 20 years old and a law student at the University of Laval in Québec. I had just been selected by Canadian Crossroads International to go to Africa – Mali to be precise. I was leaving North America for the first time. In fact, it was the first time that I was travelling by plane! Was I excited? I can still remember singing with the nuns next to me on the Alitalia flight! They were on their way to visit Rome, which for me was just stopover on my way to Bamako.
For a week during Lent I had the great privilege of accompanying Father Edwin Gariguez through a solidarity visit of the Atlantic Provinces. Father Edu is executive director of NASSA, the social action arm of the Philippines Catholic church and one of Development and Peace’s most enduring partners.
Gilio Brunelli, Director of International Programs
In light of all of the articles and discussions on the impact of the reduction in Development and Peace’s funding, we asked Gilio Brunelli, the Director of International Programs Department, to share his thoughts on CIDA's response to Development and Peace's proposal and to comment on how he sees the future of our work in the Global South. Here is what he had to say:
Development and Peace's website already provides ample details on CIDA’s response to our 2011-2016 funding proposal and some of the facts on the impacts, so there is little need to repeat these here. However, I do want to share with you some thoughts that have been weighing heavily on my mind.
