Program Officer's blog

Ten members and partners of BCCIC from Prince George, Kamloops, the Comox Valley, Victoria & Vancouver gathered over 3 days in October to take part in an intensive training workshop on "How to Facilitate a Deliberative Dialogue". It was an in-depth process that is part of BCCIC's journey in supporting our regional partners with their public engagement work. The intention was to share with them a new PE tool, that would help them further engage their local communities in global issues and the work of their organizations.

BCCIC is moving forward with its public engagement programming for 2010-2011. This year, the focus is on a PE tool called “deliberative dialogue”. This type of dialogue style is a way to facilitate people coming together to talk about complex issues in a non-threatening way. Often, people feel that they don’t know enough about issues such as poverty, climate change or human rights to sit with a group of strangers and discuss the best ways to respond to these challenges.

Minister Oda released new guidelines for how CIDA will allocate its funding in the coming years. Read about the new theme areas to ensure your proposal is targetted effectively.

Press Release Here

Are you a local non-profit or grassroots community organization with no time or money for research?

An SFU student can help make your social or environmental project a reality. Student research can be anything from reports to video production, graphic design, business planning, communication plans, survey and more.

Apply to partner with a student researcher though the Simon Fraser Public Interest Research Group at
http://sfpirg.arx/apply

A letter from Marian Dodds, Retired Teacher, to Bev Oda, Minister for International Cooperation

Bev Oda
Minister for International Cooperation
Government of Canada

Dear Ms Oda

I am writing to urge you to expedite CIDA funding for the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC). CCIC is absolutely a necessary voice in Canada for NGO’s working in international development and I was very upset to learn that their funding is in jeopardy.

The first annual Vancouver People's Summit will be hosted at this coming Car Free Day. We wanted to invite your team to take part in this exciting day of G8/G20 activism. We are hopeful that this emerging partnership with the folks at Car Free Day will strengthen the NGO/civil society in Vancouver and provide an incredible networking opportunity.