Forum connects people during International Development Week

By Stuart Thomson

thom0757@algonquincollege.com

The scenic beaches of Zanzibar, the picturesque capital of Tanzania, are generally thought of as a vacation hotspot.

But for Linda Cooke, those scenic beaches became the home of an inspiring development project aimed at improving the education opportunities afforded to the Tanzanian people.

Linda Cooke, the academic chair at Algonquin College's Perth campus, spent 14 months on the project, living in a bungalow, going without hot water and many other luxuries that get taken for granted in developed countries.

Cooke helped “develop the curriculum and framework for 30 different vocational style programs,” she said. In Tanzania, education is free until Grade 10, and then students are required to pay a fee. The fee isn't large, but “the people are very poor” and many can't afford it, said Cooke.

The Tanzanian government went to a group of Canadian colleges and foundations, including Algonquin, to create vocational programs which would help improve the skills of people who were out of school. Cooke helped train teachers and develop the education programs, working at times through a large language barrier.

Algonquin will be hosting a forum on Monday, Feb 2 that will allow people like Linda Cooke to tell their stories. The forum will be at 2 p.m. in the Restaurant International.

Matt Wheatley, of the college's International Education Centre will be running the event, which will kick off International Development Week. It is designed to help students, and anyone else who is interested, become aware of opportunities that might be available in the world of international development.

The central purpose of the International Education Centre is to help students who are in an unfamiliar land settle in, says Wheatley, but “(international development) projects come in on a regular basis.”