Dr. Stephen Ameyaw brings a wealth of knowledge and experience. For more than 20 years, he has conducted research in and developed anti-poverty strategies for the urban and rural poor in Africa, Asia and Canada. A development planner by training, Stephen has worked extensively in the poverty alleviation, gender, health, regional and urban planning, and community economic development arenas. He is an active advisory member of Simon Fraser University’s HIV/AIDS Project in Ghana and serves on the policy council of the Canadian Community Economic Development Network (CCEDNET).

Stephen’s passion for bringing knowledge and education to impoverished communities that need them the most has led him to conduct research and implement projects with the Bushmen in Kalahari, Botswana; the Masai in Tanzania; Inuit and First Nations communities in Canada; several indigenous groups in Russia; and market women in Ghana. He has become one of the few experts who understand the dynamics of indigenous knowledge and culture in development thinking and practice.

Stephen has taught at the University of Calgary and Simon Fraser University. For the last ten years he has taught a wide range of courses in economics, planning and community development at the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology (NVIT), a First Nations institution, and has helped develop partnership degree programs between Simon Fraser and NVIT.

Dr. Ameyaw has published widely, including contributing the Ghanaian section in Community Development Around the World (Campfens, H., ed., University of Toronto Press, 1997). He also has extensive field experience, having worked on many donor-funded (including CIDA and IDRC) projects in Africa. Dr. Ameyaw received his Ph.D in Planning and Development from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

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Fluent in Cree and a talented musician, storyteller and writer, Art has appeared at festivals and conferences across North America. He has served as Chief and band administrator of the Saulteau First Nation, worked as a Native community development consultant, acted as the Director of the OUC Native Adult Education Centre, and was Camosun College's First Nations Development Officer. He has published development handbooks, novels and curriculum materials; has hosted CBC programs; and has produced an award winning TV show. Art is the former director of the Native Communications Society of BC and the BC Arts Council.

Carmen immigrated to Canada from Chile after the 1973 coup. Since then she has worked as a writer, translator, broadcaster and editor, and educator. While in Chile she worked with Paulo Freire and has dedicated a great part of her life to adult literacy and popular education, teaching literacy classes at Simon Fraser University and conducting literacy workshops at conferences and seminars across Canada and in South America. She was the producer and writer of Education for a Change, a video and handbook for instructors of aboriginal literacy learners. Her poetry and short stories have won awards in Canada and Chile.

Clyde is a former OUC history and economics professor; he also served for eight years as the Director of the Shuswap-Revelstoke region of the college. He is presently a partner in a consulting firm specialising in the sustainability of non-profit organisations. He has recently worked with the Vancouver Foundation, the Community Foundations of Canada, and several foundations and emerging NGOs in Siberia. Clyde is a member of the Board of the BC Centre for Non-Profit Sustainability, and co-chairs a provincial task force to advise government on best practices in this area. In addition to recent work in Russia and at the national level in Canada, Clyde has been a member of the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation and the Pacific Northwest Regional Economic Conference. He has presented community development workshops and seminars across western Canada and in West Africa.

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Kelly is a principal with ReadySetGlobal, an international development consulting group. She has recently worked for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Sri Lanka, acted as the Southern Africa coordinator for Canada World Youth, and is currently advising the UN on refugee camp management. She has extensive experience as an intern coordinator, intern orientation/reentry facilitator, curriculum designer and writer, workshop facilitator, popular educator, gender and peace building specialist, community development trainer, youth leadership program coordinator, teacher, and project manager. For two years she managed the OUC/CIDA intern program that placed young Canadian graduates with West African NGOs. She has worked in Ghana, Gambia, Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique, Honduras, Guatemala, Zambia, Kenya, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. Kelly received her MA in Peace and Conflict Management from Royal Roads University, and is now providing management assistance in that program.

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Wayne is presently Community Liaison with the Columbia Basin Trust supporting and facilitating community development initiatives across the southeastern interior of British Columbia. Wayne is the former manager of the International Development Centre of Okanagan University College. In that capacity he had 12 years experience with five community-based West African development projects in Ghana and The Gambia. Wayne has a rich background in international project management, budgeting, proposal costing and writing, interactive curriculum design and writing, facilitation, and cross-cultural communications and conflict management. He has travelled extensively in South and Southeast Asia, Africa, Europe, the South Pacific, and Australia, and worked for six years with Canada World Youth in India and various provinces of Indonesia.

Alpha is the former Program Director for the West African Rural Development Centre in The Gambia, West Africa, and has 25 years of practical field experience in all areas of rural community development. For six years Alpha acted as the coordinator of Action Aid's Basic Education and Skills Training program in The Gambia. Alpha served as an original facilitator of the Gambia Rural Adult Instructor Training program and has received management and facilitation training in West Africa, Switzerland and Canada. He has also provided cultural and language orientations to hundreds of Western volunteers and aid workers working in West Africa. Alpha is the manger of NESA West Africa and has acted as the development consultant on several major curriculum projects and has collaborated with Canadian evaluators in conducting project evaluations in West Africa.

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Keenan, a civil/structural engineer, recently retired from the positions of Director of International Research and International Liaison Officer at the University of Western Ontario. While at UWO, he helped to create and manage a wide range of international projects and continues at UWO as an Adjunct Research Professor of Engineering. Fred is presently the Chair of International Project and Protocol Services Inc., a company that provides a range of services internationally and in Canada, including assistance in the creation, funding, monitoring, evaluation and promotion of international projects. Management services are provided to the Canadian private sector, especially firms conducting research and development, and to professional associations.

Previously, Keenan was a Senior Director in the Forestry Department of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, and was an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto.

Over the past 34 years, he has worked in over 50 countries in collaborative development and research activities. More recently, Keenan has carried out six mid-term evaluations of CIDA-funded projects in Egypt, Cuba, Vietnam, Mongolia and The Gambia.

Keenan has written several books, including a manual for AUCC on improved decision-making in UPCD Tier 2 projects, and is currently completing a textbook, International Development: A Casebook for Effective Management, using the case method of the Harvard Business School. Keenan has also written cases on the management of international development activities for the Richard Ivey School of Business.