Meet La Mucura

  As South Americans we live in complex contexts that have led us to search for new paths of social change. During this search we have discovered the great potential that lies in cultural expressions to…

Real Change

Liliet told us that she believes in ‘carpe diem’, in living life to the fullest. She explained that everything that she does, she does it to create ‘cambio real’, ‘real change’.

10 Cuban Moments

She thought it was crazy that an orange could travel all the way from Morocco and end up on her plate. Roberto just laughed and said, “No what’s crazy is that oranges can travel and we can’t.”

Meet Roydes

I see him as a Batman type; he is everywhere and manages different lives.  Roydes spends about half of his time with his mom and great-grandmother and the rest of the time with his dad, stepmother…

Culture Slap

MANNAGGIA…!!! Cuba is slapping me. Today I got lost. Stuck in a bus so crowded that by the end of the ride I was soaked and smelled like a mix of at least five different people.…

My Cuban Welcome Hug

Less than a month ago, I took a night bus from Sucre to La Paz, Bolivia. The street is curvy and dangerous, the man who blessed the bus before its departure only made me feel more…

Human Impact

In 2010, I worked with Engineers Without Borders Canada on establishing an agriculture-as-a-business curriculum as a regular activity of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in the Kassena-Nankana East District (Upper East Region, Ghana). I trained extension agents…

Youth Engagement & Social Media

Kristine Vodon, Industrial Designer Youth are increasingly spending a lot of time on online social media sites, which many say is leading to a generation of “slacktivists”. This infographic takes a deeper look into youth…

Intentions…

  I have had the privilege over the years to work with the Coady International Institute in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The Coady Institute is a place and space dedicated to bringing together community practitioners from across…

Whether or not to fight tradition

At the beginning of my career, I was in a remote part of Papua New Guinea treating a villager alongside a traditional local practitioner. Even though the local leader practiced his own methods of healing while I followed my conventional methods, we were not threatened by each other.

Meeting With Myself

Magnify conference time! We were in a full immersion with ourselves during the first week of personal development course, then we dove into the New Orleans world of non-profit and youth leadership. Creative juices flowing: ideas…

Community Narratives

Somehow everything is different the third, fourth, fifth time around. Like reading Le Petit Prince for the 20th time, with every reread I capture a new idea or learn to see those timeless metaphors in a…

Approaching Community through Theater

After weeks of hearing about an enigmatic but well respected theater group tucked away in the mountains of Cuba, we finally fell upon Teatro de los Elementos (Theater of the Elements). If all goes well, we hope that…

10 was our lucky number

By Nouha MaaninouKenitra, Morocco When RecrearApply finally kicked off in Morocco, all I did was worry. It was 11.30am and only five people were present. We had worked hard and we were expecting more people: 55…

Recrear Lives and Prospers in Kazan

By Aleksandra (Sasha) Kuznetsova, Kazan, Russia The only thing I do not enjoy about Recrear projects is that they always end. No matter how much effort you put into developing the project, or how many people…

Discovering Timbiré

By Kelli Fleming, Timbiré, Ecuador Put “Timbiré, Ecuador” in Google and you won’t find much, and by that I mean you won’t find anything. Well, unless you count islamicfinder.org, which conveniently tells me how to orient myself…

Timbiré in Pictures

By Maria Laura Minoli, Timbiré, Ecuador After our follow-up project in Palma Real, Kelli, Caitlin and I came back to San Lorenzo, and stayed the night at Fabiola’s house. We met Iván Grueso, an agronomic engineer, who…

Palma Real Follow up in Pictures

By Maria Laura Minoli, Palma Real, Ecuador Last May, three colleagues from Recrear went to deliver RecrearParticipate in a small fishing village on Ecuador’s border with Colombia, Palma Real. Kelli, Caitlin and I came back three months…

The Constant Playground

By Caitlin Flannery, Palma Real, Ecuador It is a true waterworld. With the entire four-square-block town center precariously balancing on bamboo stilts, every detail of this place fascinated me from the moment I stepped out of the…

7 Billion World

By Kirsten Williams, Chittagong, Bangladesh Here’s the deal. We’re a 7 billion people world today. But what does that actually mean? Living in North America you might not know it – the changes so incremental that you…

Our Idea Wall

So as per conference usual, during department work time the Project Management Department was conversing to understand our tasks, responsibilities, and yearly goals.  Suddenly, the conversation steered in a direction to create an “ah-ha!” moment: to put a map…