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Centre for Peace Advancement supports peace entrepreneurs
As printed in The Marketplace - November/December 2017
Heidebrecht is energized by mentoring young people who are committed to change.
Paul Heidebrecht is a different kind of business coach.
Heidebrecht is director of the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement, an inter-disciplinary organization that takes multi-sector approaches to the advancement of peace.
In a region that has many organizations working to encourage and support business start-ups in a variety of sectors, CPA is unique. It is currently the only university-based program in the world supporting peace-building related start-ups.
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Practical solutions, integrity, building trust
By Allan Sauder
As Printed in The Marketplace - September/October 2017
One of the things MEDA holds very important is our values. For us, it’s a faith-based value system that calls us to unleash what we believe is God-given potential in all people to earn a livelihood.
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Faith prints, wisdom exchanges part of TourMagination trips.
By Mike Strathdee
As Printed in The Marketplace - September/October 2017
Even in her childhood, travel was a passion for Audrey Voth Petkau.
“I always had a dream to see the world,” she recalls. “I remember early on, looking at a map of the world, and pointing to Switzerland, and saying, some day, I’m going to get there.”
Petkau enjoys local hospitality in Ak Metchet, Uzbekistan in 2013
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MEDA staff encounter a variety of experiences during travels to countries where the agency works. As these stories show, trips can take unexpected turns.
Planes, strains and automobiles
Of all the travel MEDA president Allan Sauder has done with MEDA over the past three decades, the scariest took place on a visit to Peru 20 years ago.
Sauder and his wife, Donna, were visiting agribusiness projects in Peruvian jungles. After travelling all day to the main airport in Lima, they met a driver who would take them to a small airstrip atop the Andes. From there they would fly into the jungle to visit a palm heart project.
Allan and Donna Sauder
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Tech innovators, charities need to understand each other to tackle social problems
As Printed in The Marketplace - September/October 2017
Rapidly increasing wealth and inequality in North American high-tech hubs is forcing charities to reach out to technology entrepreneurs for solutions to societal problems as well as donations.
That new, uncomfortable reality means that both sides need to understand each other’s challenges, a forum on technology and inequality in Kitchener, Ont. heard recently.
The event was held at the offices of Vidyard, a fast-growing firm which provides a platform that helps companies analyze the performance of their online sales videos. It was organized by FaithTech, a nascent movement operating in three tech clusters across Canada (Kitchener-Waterloo, Toronto and Vancouver).
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Armed conflicts reinforced by social instability
As Printed in The Marketplace - September/October 2017By Mike Strathdee
Dr. Samantha Nutt, the founder of War Child Canada, is one of the keynote speakers at MEDA’s upcoming convention: Building Bridges to Enduring Livelihoods — Business as a Calling 2017, to be held November 2-5 in Vancouver, B.C.
The excerpt below is from her book: Damned Nations: Greed, Guns Armies & Aid.
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Business shows “everybody wins” when a country embraces newcomers.
By Mike Strathdee
As Printed in The Marketplace - September/October 2017
HALIFAX — A Syrian refugee says his family’s thriving chocolate business should serve as an example of the value of Canadian “openness” in a world that has increasingly closed off its borders to refugees.
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By Mike Strathdee
As Printed in The Marketplace - September/October 2017
Southwestern Ethiopia reveals an entire value chain at work. First, there’s the cotton plants along the road, their bolls bursting like popcorn. Village women spin the fibres into yarn. In the next town people bleach the yarn pure white so it will better accept dye.
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As Printed in The Marketplace - September/October 2017
Welcome to So What?, a periodic look at MEDA’s long-term impact around the world. What really changed as a result of our development efforts? What got better for families and communities? This issue looks at the EDGET program in Ethiopia, which ran from 2010 to 2016.'
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MEDA editors are a rare breed, partly because there are so few of them. Thus far the organization has had only two people occupy the editor’s chair — Calvin Redekop, who founded The Marketplace in 1980, and Wally Kroeker, who came on board in 1985 and will retire on June 30.
We are delighted to announce our third. Seasoned journalist Mike Strathdee joined MEDA on May 1 as publications editor.
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Feeding the spirit, feeding the hungry — for Bob Engbrecht, both are God’s will
As printed in The Marketplace July/August 2017
For many people, one “calling” in life is enough. Bob Engbrecht has had two — one to pastoral ministry, the other to feeding the world.
Today, at age 78, Engbrecht has retired from one but not both.
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Fuel for the journey: Colleen Dyck in her basement kitchen where protein, fibre and Omega 3 are packed into tasty GORP bars.
Popular adventure product has a dual mission — furnish clean energy and get people out into God’s creation
Colleen Dyck got a call one day from a retailer: “Did you just pay three people to come into our store and urge us to sell your bars?”
It’s a business owner’s dream — to have customers help with marketing.
That’s what has happened in the four years since Dyck started manufacturing GORP Clean Energy Bars.
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Who would have thought the soy fields of Africa could yield benefits in a seniors’ home across the globe
by Linda Whitmore
At first blush, you might wonder what a Canadian organization of seven long-term care homes could learn from women soy farmers in Ghana that they could apply back home. But learn, they did, and the experiences of a dozen peopleCare staff who visited MEDA's Greater Rural Opportunities for Women (GROW) project in 2014 have been incorporated into its culture and practices.
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As featured in The Marketplace - 2015 - May/June:
Civil disruption has not deterred MEDA from working in global hotspots. The following edited report from a strife-torn region suggests what it’s like to work amid constant danger. For reasons of security the MEDA staffer and her location are not identified.
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As featured in The Marketplace - 2016 - May/June:
by Cavelle Dove, Myanmar
I grew up in the most eastern part of Canada, in Newfoundland. My early years were in a very small homogenous rural community, where the most exotic thing that ever happened was that once a month we would drive to a larger centre and buy bananas. Bananas! It was a luxury and a reminder of a larger world somewhere out there.
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Cavelle DoveAs featured in The Marketplace - 2016 - May/June
Cavelle Dove is passionate about empowering impoverished women. As director of MEDA’s new project in Myanmar, she helps women seize new business opportunities in the country’s changing economic environment.
Even before working for MEDA she was active in similar pursuits in Yangon, Myanmar. She and a Canadian friend, Kelly MacDonald, opened the Bakehouse, a catering business that gives struggling women a foothold in the new economy.