Working together to overcome global challenges

I’ve just returned from the International Volunteer Co-operation Organizations (IVCO) conference in Seoul.  It was inspiring to be part of a global community united in strengthening partnerships to address today’s global cooperation challenges.  At a time when countries are growing increasingly nationalist and withdrawing from international collaboration, I witnessed in Seoul a civil society movement committed to strong international cooperation and eager to accomplish more together.  IVCO Chair Chris Eaton summed up this commitment well: “We need to go out of our comfort zone; we need more room for our partners at the Forum and on the ground.”

The theme of this year’s conference was Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) through transformative partnership in volunteering.  Crossroads International took the theme to heart, kicking off the conference with Sustaining Girls’ Empowerment, a joint presentation with the Director of Educational Testing, Guidance and Psychological Services of the Swaziland Ministry of Education, Ms. Lindiwe Dlamini.  We presented our work with local partner Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA) that is empowering thousands of girls at risk of gender-based violence.  Most importantly, we demonstrated that a program nurtured and supported by volunteers is now expanding across the country, with growing engagement, and ownership demonstrated by the Swazi Government which ultimately will be key to sustainability.

Crossroads volunteers have worked alongside local people and partners for decades.  Working together as equals is a value we have held since the first volunteer served overseas in 1958.  On International Volunteer Day on December 5^th, we will launch our 60^th anniversary celebrations on Parliament Hill.  In the company of our partners from Togo and Burkina Faso and our volunteers, we will share with MPs, Senators and Ministers successful stories of 60 years of partnership addressing poverty and advancing equality across the world.

After six decades of activity and more than 9,000 volunteer placements in the South, the One World vision of our founders remains relevant, not only to Crossroads but to the entire international volunteer community.  I am positive that we can unite to overcome global cooperation challenges and see better times in which the values of solidarity and equality regain their importance.  Thank you to all volunteers for offering their time, skills and enthusiasm in pursuing this goal!

Planting seeds of hope for the new generation

103,318. That’s the number of people who crossed the Mediterranean Sea to get to Italy from January to August 2017. 103,318 people, most of them youth leaving everything behind, country, wives, families, to seek a better future, a quest that cost many their lives.

 

This is what poverty looks like with its intense despair that makes people risk their life for an Eldorado that often doesn’t exist. Europe’s promise hides a sad reality for migrants. Most of them end up in the streets or in migrants’ camps without better prospects than before.

Faced with growing poverty and food insecurity, Senegalese youth are among many African youth who lack hope for the future and are making the choice to leave. This situation is dramatic. The Senegalese economy relies deeply on cash crops and fishing and the growing exodus threatens the future of theses sectors.

What can be done to stop the flow of youth leaving their country? We can revalue agriculture as a viable career and lifestyle choice attractive to youth.

On my recent visit to Senegal, I met proud youth working in agriculture, growing a rotation of crops that allow them to have revenues all year long. These youth took part in the Farmers for the Future project launched by our partner RESOPP with Crossroads International’s support. One hundred youth, half of them women, were trained in modern farming technics, agroecology and management and now understand how it can work. This model is inexpensive and has a high retention rate with youth who now have steady revenue and activity.

Projects like this one are inspiring and have proven their worth in other countries like Bolivia, Togo or Tanzania where our partners, with Crossroads’ collaboration, developed new farming models that now provide sustainable revenues to youth and their community. I’ve seen promising results and those projects are real catalyst for change that can transform the way youth see agriculture and can help them find new sustainable prospects for the future.