Canada’s Global Villagers : CUSO in Development, 1961-86

Established in 1961, the same year as the US Peace Corps, Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO) became the first Canadian NGO to undertake development work from a secular stance and in a context of rapid decolonization.

Over the next twenty-five years, nine thousand volunteers, many of them women, travelled to over forty countries and became Canada’s face in the Global South. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews, Brouwer tells the story of how these young Canadians responded to the challenges of “underdevelopment.” Moving beyond their initial naïveté, they sought to fit into the host communities that had invited them and to provide social services, particularly in education.

Returning home, they brought unique skills to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and other development organizations and a new level of global consciousness and cultural diversity to Canadian society. At a time when many are concerned about Canada’s waning reputation for global humanitarianism, this book reminds us of an earlier, more hopeful time.