Our work – What we do
Increasing economic autonomy for women and youth
Crossroads International volunteers work with local partners to strengthen collective enterprises and small businesses led by women and youth. Poverty and unemployment disproportionately affects women and youth. Africa has the fastest-growing and most youthful population in the world. Through economic initiatives such as soap making, small animal husbandry, bee keeping and market gardening, women and youth are earning a sustainable income. As a result, many are increasing food security for themselves and their communities and gaining leadership skills. Investing in economic empowerment of women and youth is investing in poverty-eradication and economic growth for all.
I am so happy and grateful to SWIFT, they made me feel positive about the things I am doing. They made me to keep the hope that I had lost for a long time.” Phephile Hlophe, small entrepreneur trained on business development by local partner Swaziland Fair Trade (SWIFT).
LAURA DA RE
Laura Da Re is Vice President, Finance at Numeris, an audience measurement company. She is an experienced executive with over twenty-five years in the field of Finance. Throughout her career, she has worked in a variety of industries, providing her with a vast range of knowledge and expertise. Laura is a board member of the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine and mentors accounting students obtaining their CPA designation.
Vanita Varma, vice chair & chair of governance committee
Vanita is a senior non-profit executive with over 20 years of experience in organizational leadership, strategic and operational planning, change management and social innovation. Having lived and worked in over 3 countries in Asia and Middle East, Vanita is passionate about engaging diverse community stakeholders and leading multi-sectoral partnerships towards collective goals on social change. Currently, she is the Interim Chief Executive Officer at WellFort Community Health Services and is a coach and mentor at Ryerson University and University of Toronto.
JEAN OLEMOU
Jean is Co-Founder and Principal of GreenDev Inc., an impact investing firm dedicated to advancing the circular economy in Africa, the Americas, and Europe. He has extensive experience working on financing mandates in renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure sectors globally. Jean is a community-minded leader with a track record of serving on boards and advisory committees to advance sustainable development goals in Canada and globally.
FABIEN-LANTERI
Fabien is an attorney specialized in Bank Financing and Project Financing at the law firm Blake, Cassels and Graydon, LLP. He has been involved in numerous financings in Canada, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Other areas of expertise include renewable energy and infrastructure projects, as well as public-private partnerships (P3). Fabien has extensive international development experience with points of focus on Africa, gender equality and sustainable development.
LYSE DOUCET (CÔTE D’IVOIRE 1982)
I was sitting with a group of African women pounding yams. Day in day out, they pounded yams. Then, one day, I finally asked: “Wouldn’t you like to do something different?” They stole a glance at each other, and at me, and laughed and laughed. “What kind of question is that? We can’t do anything else. So why would we ask?”
It was one of my first lessons as an aspiring journalist in trying to understand a society on its own terms. It shouldn’t be my questions, never mind the answers. It was their questions that matter.
My Crossroads experience in 1982 changed the direction of my life. It was the catalyst that propelled me into the international work I do to this day.
My placement was in the town of Adzope, at a small private school set in lush tropical forests a short drive from the Ivorian capital, Abidjan. It was my first trip abroad. I am grateful to this day that I started my journey at village level. It gave me a window on a world so different from my own.
Whenever I do journalism training, I recall my own beginnings in an African village which taught me that to truly understand a society, you must try to feel its “heat and dust,” the rhythms of its days. Life at an Adzope school with two fellow Crossroaders was endlessly interesting, absorbing and an occasional challenge!
When my placement ended, I travelled across West Africa to Senegal where I started freelancing as a journalist where I got my first article published in 1983 in “West Africa” magazine. I ended up spending five years in Africa, and my Crossroads experience in those first months shaped my understanding of the continent. It’s a badge of honour when I return to Africa for my work, or meet Africans abroad.
Two years ago, I returned to Adzope. It was bittersweet to walk the paths I had taken so long ago and to see the sad turn Ivory Coast had taken from a beacon of stability to a divided land. Even our much-loved representative there, Tete Kpakote, had to flee the violence.
Each time I visit Canada, I am reminded of how these cultures we discover in our Crossroads placements are now part of our own national mosaic. They present a richness and a responsibility within our own neighbourhoods. More than ever, it seems critical for us to try to understand differences in cultures and attitudes. This is where Crossroads also plays a role.
I will remain forever grateful for my Crossroads experience, a defining moment that opened my eyes to the world, starting with my first meetings with Crossroaders in Toronto. They had such optimism and curiosity. I’ve stayed in touch with my fellow travellers. And in the world I live in now, interviewing everyone from peasants to presidents, I appreciate my connection to the Crossroads community and its commitment to a better world.
Lyse Doucet is a presenter and correspondent for both BBC World Service radio and BBC World News television. She began her journalism career following her Crossroads placement and was based in Abidjan for five years as a foreign correspondent for the BBC. She often anchors special news coverage around the globe and has frequently interviewed world leaders. Her reporting has earned her numerous broadcasting awards. Lyse is an honorary patron for Canadian Crossroads International.
LISA R. LIFSHITZ, CHAIR OF RISK COMMITTEE
Lisa R. Lifshitz is a partner at Torkin Manes LLP and is currently the Chair of its Technology, Privacy and Data Management Group. Lisa is nationally and globally recognized and ranked for..
Janet Riehm, Treasurer & Chair of Finance Committee
Janet is Owner and Principal Consultant of Janet Riehm Consulting, advising charities and non-profit organizations internationally. A CPA and CGA, she has provided strategic and financial services to a variety of clients in communities extending from First Nations in Canada to rural development in communities in Africa. She is also a former Crossroader having volunteered in Botswana in addition to having served as a member of the Finance Committee at Crossroads. She joins Crossroads, providing over 25 years of experience in the non-profit sector.
PATRICIA ERB, VICE CHAIR
Board Chair & Chair of Executive Committee & Nominating committee
Patricia Erb was the Interim Executive Director of Crossroads International from December 2018 to May 2019. She has worked with Save the Children throughout countries of Latin America for 23 years before taking up the role of President and CEO for Save the Children Canada in 2011 until the end of 2017. In the mid-1970s, Patricia, was kidnapped and tortured by the Argentine Junta. Patricia has been recognized by both government and human rights organizations for her contribution to the process of truth, memory and reparation in Argentina.
She has also done extensive work on issues of decolonization, cultural preservation and communal well-being with Indigenous Peoples in Latin America, particularly in Bolivia and Canada. She is also known for her work with women’s grassroots organizations and gender transformation.
MARIAMA DRAMÉ, BOARD CHAIR & CHAIR OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
With over 15 years of experience, Mariama Dramé is a seasoned Human Resources Executive and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) advocate.
The Honourable Audrey McLaughlin (Barbados 1986)
Audrey was the leader of the NDP from 1989-1995, making her the first female leader of a political party in the House of Commons. She volunteered in Barbados with Crossroads International in 1986. A committed advocate for women, Audrey has served as President of the Socialist International Women and as member of the National Democratic Institute with which she helped women in Kosovo run the country’s first democratic election.
LAWRENCE-HILL (Niger 1979, Cameroon 1981, Mali 1989, Swaziland 2014)
Lawrence is the award-winning author of ten books, including The Book of Negroes, which his years of work with Crossroads partly inspired. He has volunteered with Crossroads in Niger, Cameroon, Mali and Swaziland. He won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, and both CBC Radio’s Canada Reads and Radio-Canada’s Combat des livres. Lawrence is also professor of creative writing at the University of Guelph, in Ontario.
ANN MCCAIN EVANS (ETHIOPIA 1976)
Ann volunteered with Crossroads in Ethiopia in 1976. Currently she serves as Chairperson of the Harrison McCain Foundation and as a Director of the Marion McCain Foundation, The McCain Foundation and the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. She has served on a number of boards and committees, including the Montreal Board of Trade, the Steering Committee of the Westmount Environment Action Committee and served on the Board of Governors of Acadia University among others. Ann is a native of Florenceville, New Brunswick.
A 1974 graduate of Florenceville High School, Ms. Evans studied at the Canadian Junior College in Lausanne, Switzerland and L’Université de Grenoble, France (Certificate, Languages, Literature and Civilization, 1978) and Trent University (B.A., Politics and History, 1979).
Poverty, gender-based violence, early marriage and limited participation in political and public life are some of the hardships women and girls face in Burkina Faso. The country has a child marriage prevalence rate of 52% and 76% of women and girls aged 15 to 49 have undergone Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Despite positive actions taken by the Burkinabe government, the influence of traditions and culture is still important and continues to weigh on women and girls. Women representation in the Burkinabe parliament is only 11%.
CBDF is a network of 15 NGOs and associations with a diversity of skills and the common goal of improving women’s rights. CBDF works on promoting equality between men and women, defending women’s effective participation in politics and fighting against gender-based violence. Crossroads International and the CBDF main area of collaboration is preventing girls’ forced and early marriages.
Since 1994, this organization has been committed to the well-being of the populations in Burkina Faso and works directly with 105 grassroots community organizations and 4 networks in catering and processing, agriculture, mutualists in rural and urban areas, with in and out-of-school youth and populations between 14 and 65 years old, especially women and children. Crossroads works with ASMADE since 2020 to improve access to justice and rights in matters of sexual and reproductive health, and reduce gender-based violence, to strengthen the leadership and political representation of women and girls, to increase women’s economic power and increasing women’s resilience to climate change and environmental sustainability.
The Group was created in 2006 with the mission of enhancing, promoting and developing voluntary engagement in Burkina Faso, structuring and managing the development of national volunteering in order to effectively contribute to national development. Crossorads works with GIP-PNVB since 2020 to strengthen the leadership and political representation of women and girls, to increase the economic power of women and youth, and to increase women’s resilience to climate change and environmental sustainability.
