Carleton’s bachelor of global and international studies (BGInS) program has partnered with Canadian University Students Overseas (CUSO) to offer a course for third-year BGInS students, where students work to help urban farmers in Peru.
Students are able to do the course work from campus, as opposed to a traditional exchange, which involves travel abroad. This is something that appeals to Marylynn Steckley, the professor working with students in the course.
“This is a really unique program because it’s a way of doing green volunteering. This is the first program we have in Canada when we can dramatically reduce our carbon footprint [while] doing development work,” she said.
CUSO is running the program—called ‘Feeding Lima From Within’—from Peru. It aims to combat the problems with increasingly dry weather conditions in the country. As a result of the lack of suitable farming land, which has been linked to climate change, Peru relies heavily on food imports, Steckley said. She added that people have flocked to cities because they can’t make a living farming.
According to Steckley, CUSO has started to work with Peruvian farmers to implement urban agriculture programs as a means of providing independence and a source of income, and as a way of providing food to others.
“Imported food is undermining the local economy, so we really want to figure out how they can connect with other farmers working on local food projects and really achieve food sovereignty and food justice,” she said.
In the classroom, students are divided into groups focusing on producing research into areas such as marketing, networking, and looking at similar programs throughout Latin America. They are gathering this research and sharing it with the CUSO office in Peru, which then works to educate farmers about running successful urban agriculture businesses.
Holly Laurenzio, a third-year BGInS student, said she felt a particular draw towards the program when she saw a flyer advertising it.
“It’s a really perfect bridge between undergraduate studies, whilst also gaining that real world experience of working in international development,” she said.
Laurenzio works in the research and networking group, and has met with Global Affairs Canada to create awareness about the program and build CUSO’s network.
Trevor Eggleton, CUSO’s acting director of communications and marketing, said that the kind of work students are able to do is invaluable.
“This program is good for us because we wouldn’t necessarily have this capability to do this breadth of research into the topic, but we were impressed [by] the levels of knowledge the students were bringing and the quality of the work they were able to do,” he said.
