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Kenya vegetable packer helps small farmers expand into fruit production
By Mike Strathdee
As Printed in The Marketplace – March/April 2018
NAIROBI, KENYA - Jane Maina has a plan to increase the incomes of thousands of Kenyan farmers, and diversify her own business in the process.
Maina, managing director and co-owner of Vert, aims to reduce her vegetable processing firm’s dependence on European markets, and replace some of her nation’s imports of one of its favorite juices.
Through a partnership with MEDA’s M-SAWA project, (M-SAWA stands for Maendeleo- Sawa, or Equitable Prosperity) –Vert aims to train subsistence farmers how to grow mangos and passion fruit that meet international standards.
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Pastor converts to value of churches helping with job training
By Colin McCartney
A while ago I had the opportunity to attend a job creation conference in Memphis. I have been doing some church planting work for the Mennonites in low-income urban, neighbourhoods and they wanted me to look into creating micro-businesses that would employ people in our job-depleted urban communities.
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Family creates jobs in rural village that sponsored them
By Mike Strathdee
As printed in The Marketplace - January/February 2018
In an ideal world, Tareq Hadhad would be practicing medicine in his homeland.
Instead, he is the public face of his family’s chocolate company, in a country they have only called home for a couple of years.
But with an entrepreneur’s can-do attitude, Hadhad chooses to emphasize the positive. “We always have challenges in our lives,” Hadhad said in a seminar presentation about his family’s firm, Peace by Chocolate, at MEDA’s annual convention in Vancouver.
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Businesses that take wholistic view are thriving
By Mike Strathdee
As printed in The Marketplace - January/February 2018
Businesses that want to grow lasting profits will embrace “triple bottom line” thinking that seeks to maximize purpose as well as dollars, a Pennsylvania business professor says.
“At the end of the day, because of how God has created and designed business to work, you are actually going to maximize profit if you pay attention to your customers, to your suppliers, to your employees,” JoAnn Flett said in a workshop address at MEDA’s annual convention in Vancouver.
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Celebrated fashion line raises funds for charity decades after firm’s demise
By J.B. Miller
As printed in The Marketplace - January/February 2018
Susan Kauffman and Eugene Stuzman with one of the Eugene Alexander gowns
High fashion ladies apparel is a fickle business. Each year new creations debut on Paris and New York’s fashion runways, setting style trends for the coming year. When the scene is repeated next season, the current “must-have” party gowns soon become aging fashion statements, finding their way to thrift shops and on-line markets for buyers of vintage or Halloween party attire and finally disappearing altogether.
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Long-time publications editor makes Biblical case for MEDA’s mission
As Printed in The Marketplace – January/February 2018
MEDA’s work providing economic opportunity in developing nations is a deeply spiritual vocation that is desperately needed by a hurting world, long-time staffer Wally Kroeker told the agency’s annual convention.
“I believe MEDA’s work is as Godly and missional as it gets,” Kroeker told over 300 supporters who gathered in Vancouver in early November. “Seriously folks, the world really, really needs our consistently transformational message. We exist for times like these.”
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Economic development within ethical framework more effective than aid.
By Mike Strathdee
As printed in The Marketplace - January/February 2018
Reducing armed conflict and providing economic opportunity are goals that go hand in hand, the founder of War Child Canada and War Child USA says.
Dr. Samantha Nutt, founder of War Child
“You can’t have development without peace, and you can’t have peace without development,” Dr. Samantha Nutt said in a plenary address to MEDA’s annual convention in Vancouver.
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Helping women in one of poorest countries of the world
By Mike Strathdee
As printed in The Marketplace - January/February 2018
MEDA is working to help 25,000 women in Myanmar, but is not involved in areas of the country where violence and conflict are occurring, president Allan Sauder told supporters at the organization’s annual convention.
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, is in transition from decades of political and economic isolation, and remains one of the poorest countries in the world, he said. MEDA’s ongoing work assists women in Shan and Kayin States to grasp new economic opportunities, primarily in agricultural markets.
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By Mike Strathdee
As printed in The Marketplace - January/February 2018
Record donations from supporters, assisting 91 million families and praise from government funders were highlights of the past year at MEDA, the organization’s annual meeting heard.
Supporters set a record in private contributions to MEDA for the second year in a row, totaling $6.5 million US, president Allan Sauder said.
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By Mike Strathdee
As printed in The Marketplace - January/February 2018
The Christian view that giving should be kept secret is based on misunderstanding of two Bible verses resulting in a “secrecy doctrine” that we need to get past, a Manitoba businessman and former pastor argues.
Most Christians don’t understand the Bible passage they cite in arguing that giving should be kept secret, Peter Dueck says. “I would like us to get past this secrecy doctrine.”
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By Mike Strathdee
As printed in The Marketplace - November/December 2017
Neil Denison of MEDA’s Waterloo office shared the reflection below during a Sept. 11 staff meeting.
People are prone to do awful things when they lose hope. When they see no future. When they can find no opportunities.
What resonates deeply with me about MEDA’s mission is our desire to help people see hope in their communities, to find the opportunities for a better life and future. MEDA’s mission is a practical expression of Jeremiah 29:11:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
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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.