A tribute to Justin and Genille French

Once again life’s magic has brought two very gifted, caring, and passionate individuals into my life – they are most special.

Seeking community – its fundamentals

(Picture: These children deserve a warm and loving community and a world of wonder in which to grow and flourish like those in most developed countries) I have been invited to participate in projects around community development, learning activities around world transitions, and discussions of all sorts about the dilemmas faced globally. I find in […]

What a wonderful world

What a wonderful world. Years ago, people complained about barriers – to travel, communications (older people remember telegrams) and all kids of other constraints for visiting and communicating. They yearned to be able to understand other cultures, customs, and lifestyles. We now live in a world where most constraints are non-existent. We can travel, communicate, […]

The Fragility of Humanity

Like most people, as I sit and watch the coverage of how COVID-19 is ravaging most countries of the world and killing hundreds of thousands, especially those my own age, life becomes a focus, or perhaps I should say, death enters the picture as a correlative to life. One aspect of human reaction that causes […]

When Results Are Not Enough

Results in an initiative, project or enterprise are imperative for many reasons.  They demonstrate progress, justify effort and funding, build confidence within and without and they build community acceptance and pride.  There are obviously many more and other reasons that results matter, but results are only one part of the equation.

Creating a Ukrainian CED Process

(This picture was taken after one of many training sessions that were held for all who participated in the project. Education was a major component of this Community Economic Development project.) Why Community Economic Development is so Important to Ukraine: It is not hard when one first arrives and travels in Ukraine to feel despair for […]

Community Economic Development

Community Economic Development (CED), the development of communities by the people that live in them, in the Canadian context, has had a very varied history and one could suggest a very checkered past.  One could even say it is still a history in the making as in the country among communities, policy makers and others […]

Global Development – the local challenge

The changes taking place in society are so pervasive that they are causing fundamen­tal shifts in our thinking, atti­tudes and our approaches to development issues.  The integration of econ­omies, shifts in manufacturing bases, communications develop­ments and technological developments are having impacts, causing stress and re-evaluation of institutions, programs and methodol­ogies. In essence, we are arriving […]

Economic Development – the conundrum of community

During the seventies and eighties it was relatively clear that economics was about business, and as such, development was about business attraction.  This picture began to blur with advances in technology, global mobility and governments reaching the limits of theirs fiscal abilities. This shift poses a dilemma for policy-makers in Canada and those elsewhere in […]