It was four years in the making but there were a lot of smiling faces and plenty of enthusiasm as partners from around the world gathered at Coady Institute early this summer for four days of meetings. Representatives from all partners of the ENGAGE! Women’s Empowerment and Active Citizenship project met at the Coady Institute July 15-18, 2024.
Engage project manager Eric Smith says the other five partners in Engage have hosted the project’s workshops, research, activities, and management meetings over the past four years. This includes meetings in Haiti, Tanzania, Ethiopia, India, and Bangladesh.
“This was our opportunity to repay some of their hospitality here in Canada,” Eric says.
We’re really thinking about how to localize feminist and asset-based approaches, how to communicate the importance of doing so, and how [these approaches] can contribute to projects or community development work.
Each of the meeting days covered a different topic, with the ultimate goal of planning out the final two years of the project.
The first day of meetings consisted of updates from each of the partner organizations on what has affected their work in the field or their countries and contexts. Each partner shared challenges and successes and how they will be working to incorporate lessons from the previous four years into their organizations and future work.
“We have a young cadre coming up becoming a member through this project,” Mansi Shah of SEWA says. “We have also shifted how we support young team members, how we train them not only as our trainers but also as our social enterprises, be part of the value chains which we want to have integrated and inclusive.”
The second day focused on advocacy, guided by program teaching staff Julien Landry, who provided frameworks to help partners think through a few topics they want to approach over the final two years of the project.
“We’re really thinking about how to localize feminist and asset-based approaches, how to communicate the importance of doing so, and how [these approaches] can contribute to projects or community development work,” Eric says.
Day three consisted of financial updates and forecasting spending for the remaining two years of the project. After a heavy day discussing finance, the group took a field visit to see Robert Overmars of Overview Farms. There, Robert gave a demonstration of climate smart drone technology he has piloted over the last year. The agricultural drone can be used to assess field and soil health, spot treat pests and weeds, seed cover crops, and minimize agricultural inputs.
The final day of meetings included collectively developing a work plan for the next two years and discussing future meetings, courses, and workshops.
Moving forward, the project will also include Fellowship visits to Coady for the partners to “deep-dive” into a research or strategic organizational topic and exchanges where the partners can learn directly from each other.
“This sets us up really well for the end of the project and finalizing our community-based activities as it will set the stage for whatever comes next,” Eric says.
Engage partners visit Overview Farms.
Engage partners visit Martha’s Growers Cooperation
Engage partners share their learnings.
In the afternoons, partner staff had the opportunity to attend field visits with different community sectors across Antigonish. Besides the trip to Overview Farms, the group visited the Martha’s Growers Cooperative and the Antigonish Women’s Resource Centre. Eric expressed his appreciation of all three groups for their knowledge and hospitality.
Along with the staff from the five partner organizations, the Engage team also connected with members from the Rural Women Cultivating Change program and UHAI, Africa’s first Indigenous activist-led and managed fund for and by sex workers and sexual and gender minorities.
Coady staff who had not met any Engage partners until this event also had an opportunity to meet everyone involved.
“I think it was a great opportunity for Coady staff to get to know the partners they have not yet been able to build face-to-face relationships with,” Eric says. “Overall, it was a productive week; it was important to have everyone in the same room together charting our map for the next two years.”