Language

I have always been impressed by the amount of courage and determination it must take to be a newcomer to Canada. I know life here is generally pretty good but for newcomers it is often cold, lonely, confusing, challenging, frustrating and even boring. One of the big bottlenecks to new immigrants making the life they want is language. If you have ever tried to learn a new language you know it takes a lot of time, energy and bravery. I have tried to learn three second languages and still have them all on my 'to do' list. New immigrants to Canada often take English Second Language (ESL) courses where they are often learning their 3rd or 4th or 5th!

My attempt at a better world for today is my weekly (almost) couple hours of tutor time in an entry level ESL / literacy course. This is for people, often refugees, who are very new to English and often weren't literate in their first language. The class is paired with a daycare service to cater to people with young children and it is put on by the Halifax Immigrant Learning Center (HILC). It is my weekly dose of cultural diversity, time with kids, and humility. All things that are often lacking in my life, and I dare say, in the life of most young middle class adults in Canada.

It reminds me that literacy does not mean intelligence (or vice versa), rather it usually means a lack of previous opportunity. It also reminds me of how hard people are trying to become contributing members of society and that supporting these people is a benefit to everyone. In my opinion anyway :)

English and education are gifts most Canadians have, that are free (or often benefit you) to share. Consider it. And give feedback.

Engineers Without Borders (Day)

If you were in a grocery store in a Canadian city today you might have seen something like this:


Engineers Without Borders Chapter members were trying to raise awareness of Fair Trade Certified products - products certified to give producers a guaranteed fair price for their work and promote human development in the communities producing these goods.

The idea is that if consumers have a choice to buy fair products they will do it - activism through shopping. I don't think it solves all the problems with our current trade systems but I do think it is a good step, and potentially leads to people considering the impacts of their actions on the world.

Here in Halifax I would say they are pretty ahead of the curve on Fair Trade awareness and access. We have found fair trade bananas, oranges, grapes, chocolate, tea, coffee and rice so far. Also it didn't really work to have the same kind of event (although one is in the works) yet so instead we had a cool event called "Propelling Change."

We met at the Propellor microbrewery and had a presentor who is an expert on microfinance in Bangladesh - Farzana Naz Shmapa - share some of her research. We raised some money for EWB, learned a lot about microfinance and the Grameen bank (you may have heard of Dr. Muhammad Yunus winning the Nobel Peace prize in 2006), drank some excellent all natural beverages (pop too!) and had a tour of the brewery.

My attempt at a better world was to introduce the event and give a quick into to EWB. Hopefully it contributed to the overall effectiveness of the event and created some interest in EWB. I adlibbed but here is a similar intro for anyone interested.

"Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Canada is a registered Canadian charity working towards human development. There are EWB organization in some other countries but EWB Canada is a stand alone organization.

EWB works simultaneously overseas and in Canada to promote human development.

Overseas EWB works in four countries in SubSaharan Africa, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, Zambia. They have worked in more countries in the past but have gradually focussed in on these countries to capitalize on great partnership opportunities and allow for more accumulation of locally appropriate knowledge and experience. EWB volunteers are young Canadians who work in (4 month to 2 year ) partnership with existing organizations working to promote human development through improving water and sanitation, impoving rural agriculture production and the associated value chains. Each volunteers 'job description' varies a lot depending on the needs of their partner and the local context of the projects.

In Canada EWB is mainly a student driven organization with 27 chapters at universities across the country, 6 professional chapters, and about 25 staff (some working overseas). These chapters work to promote human development through increasing the development knowledge of their members, promoting public awareness of human development issues and associated behaviour change, advocating for pro poor changes to our systems (like pushing the government to make development aid more effective), and fundraising.

Although EWB does not work on microfinance directly some of our partner organizations do and the 'Propelling Change' event was a chance to learn from an expert on the subject while having some fun and earning some money.