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Company develops robots to clear deadly land mines
By Mike Strathdee
As printed in The Marketplace - November/December 2017
Company develops robots to clear deadly land mines
For Richard Yim, building a business to speed up the elimination of land mines is neither just a good business opportunity nor an abstract idea for making the world a better place.
Yim knows firsthand the human cost of leftover bombs from bygone wars. He and his family came to Canada from Cambodia when he was 13, five years after losing an aunt to a land mine. It’s still something that the family struggles to understand.
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Helping women get access to tools for farming success
By Mike Strathdee
As printed in The Marketplace - November/December 2017
MEDA is building on its successful work with women farmers in northern Ghana with a new initiative, the GROW (Greater Rural Opportunities for Women) Technology Fund.
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By Mike Strathdee
As printed in The Marketplace - November/December 2017
Elaine Shantz and Miriam Turnbull
Elaine Shantz and Miriam Turnbull took a long hike this summer, raising over $123,000 in the process to lift women farmers in Ghana out of poverty.
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Head of Virginia firm sees success through flexibility, trust
By Jesse Huxman
As printed in The Marketplace - November/December 2017
Devon Anders is all about building relationships. Anders is CEO of InterChange Group, a Harrisonburg, Va-based logistics firm. From the outside, you might think the business is just a warehouse company. It’s really about relationships.
Devon grew up in a Mennonite family near Souderton, Penn. Much of his business education came from watching how his father, a banker, treated others. “I learned that it was about treating people right. …My approach has always been, ‘Hey I’m going to try to be upfront with where I’m at with you, and I want you to do the same back to me.”
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GreenHouse helps students build skills, test dreams.
By Mike Strathdee
As printed in The Marketplace - November/December 2017
Tania Del Matto
Tania Del Matto has a ringside seat on the next generation of people who want to change the world.
As director of the St. Paul’s Uni- versity College GreenHouse program, she walks alongside students who want to start businesses or non-profits, as well as folks who have an idea that they don’t know what to do with.
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Centre for Peace Advancement has helped non-profits and businesses
By Mike Strathdee
As printed in The Marketplace - November/December 2017
Several registered charities — Pastors in Exile (an Anabaptist-rooted movement that connects young people in Waterloo Region with vibrant faith experiences outside and inside of church walls) and Theatre of the Beat (a travelling social justice theatre troupe) re-organized or developed their existing structure through work with Conrad Grebel University College’s Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement.
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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.