Ambassador Allan Culham, Permanent Mission of Canada to the OAS; Dr. Lloyd Axworthy, President and Vice-Chancellor, UWinnipeg; Ambassador Albert R. Ramdin, Assistant Secretary General of the OAS
WINNIPEG, MB – The University of Winnipeg signed an important agreement with the Organization of American States (OAS) to strengthen education and human development.
The agreement, which is administrated through the OAS’s Department of Human Development, Educations and Culture, was signed on Friday, November 12, 2010 as part of an OAS / Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian Symposium in Washington D.C., where UWinnipeg President & Vice-Chancellor Lloyd Axworthy and Executive Director of Government, Indigenous, and Community Affairs Jennifer Rattray spoke on Indigenous education.
The OAS is a multi-lateral organization involving all of the countries in the Western Hemisphere including Canada, with the exception of Cuba. The agreement outlines two principal ways the University and the OAS can together enhance education and human development.
The first is through co-sponsorship of scholarship recipients selected through the OAS Scholarship and Training Programs to study at UWinnipeg, in programs such as its new Master’s in Development Practice (MDP) program. UWinnipeg’s MDP program specializes in Indigenous Development, which is the main focus of this partnership.
The second is by distance learning and teaching techniques through the use of information technologies, especially for co-operative leaders and managers, low income groups, rural communities, and communities of low levels of development.
“This is an important signing that reflects our collective commitment to Indigenous development,” said Axworthy. “Together, our organizations will be better able to train a new cohort of development practitioners with the skills to handle the complex challenges of today’s world of development.”
Areas of Cooperation
The agreement also outlines some special areas of cooperation, such as:
- the establishment of a network of universities interested in post-secondary education for Indigenous students and the challenges of development in Indigenous communities.
- by fostering relationships with the private sector to help them articulate their corporate social responsibility, to explore opportunities for cost-sharing of activities to promote Indigenous development, and to access their sectoral expertise in the implementation of the field training component of the MDP program,
- and by facilitating contact with, and among, national governments on programs serving Indigenous communities including special commissions and agencies, education liaison offices, and social service and economic development departments.
MEDIA CONTACT
Diane Poulin, Marketing & Communications, University of Winnipeg
P: 204.988.7135 E: d.poulin@uwinnipeg.ca
