Foreign Affairs Committee on April 28th, 2015

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Colleagues, are there any other questions?

Go ahead, Romeo.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

I want to get back briefly to the challenges as they relate to volunteers. I was intrigued by a comment made by Mr. Breen about the need for new models of volunteers. I wonder if you can expand on that and provide some examples. I think it's an important component in all of these international efforts that we have. I was intrigued by that remark. It did not escape me when Ms. Strong talked about the volunteers and how she insisted on the expression, “trained volunteers”. I think it's an important component in all of this and I'd like Mr. Breen to expand on that.

[Kieran Breen]

In CUSO International, if you go back 50 years, a volunteer was a university graduate who wanted to help the world. We've moved on. Over the last decade, if you go back 10 years, your average volunteer was a mid-40s professional, skilled and committed, whom we've asked for and trained, and who would then go often for two years to a country. Increasingly, with changes in the economy and the kind of marketplace and skills, we've been looking at whether placements could go for three or six months and still make a difference. We found that the answer is yes. Increasingly we have volunteers working with a partner. We may have a two-year volunteer working with a partner with somebody coming in for three months to set up a database and train people on it.

We are increasingly looking at the possibilities of e-volunteering. Our health work is one of those areas that could possibly be very helpful where you would have skilled Canadian medical professionals who are a Skype call away from coaching and mentoring health professionals in Africa and in Asia. At the moment this is an exciting area of work that we're developing. We're looking at how to make that work.

We're also looking into tapping into the diaspora communities much more. Canada has a rich diversity of communities who clearly have a good understanding of the countries we work in. We're looking at how best can we utilize those resources. There are lots of benefits to that. Outside of the Canadian experience, we also support what we call staff-to-staff volunteering. For example, it may be there are skilled doctors in Kenya who want to work in Uganda or Tanzania. These are other models.

I think if I were looking going forward, our volunteering would be more about customer service and flexible response and not having a one-size-fits-all approach. Perhaps 20 years ago you could have a volunteer for two years or you couldn't have one. It's about building a relationship with a partner and then having a portfolio of volunteers. You could be working with a hospital and a midwife who has gone there for two years and who is going to be working with them. You have a doctor in Canada who's being an e-volunteer supporting them. You have some MBA-type business volunteers coming in to help them with the running of the hospital. They're coming in for perhaps three months a year over a five-year period to progress work plans.

That's the kind of way we're taking it forward. What is essential to all of that is this idea that they are professional people who are trained to understand, value, and respect the people they're working with. They're not going there to tell people, but to learn, share, and work with.

[Romeo Saganash, NDP, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

To all our witnesses, Mr. Breen, Ms. Bucio, Mr. Stevenson, Ms. Strong, and of course, Dr. Kambou, in Washington, thank you for being here today.

They're all great organizations doing very interesting things.

We definitely appreciate your presentations today. Thank you.

With that, the meeting is adjourned.